


The Cracks in Your Mask

by Chyeahlex16



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance, Canon-compliant mostly, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Flashbacks (very vague and not explicit tho cuz it hurts me too), Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith, Gen, Internalized Biphobia, Lance has a secret and he's taking it to the grave, Love Confessions, M/M, Near Death Experiences, OC characters, PTSD!Lance, Past Child Abuse, Possibly Triggering Material, Protective Team Voltron, Temporary Death I guess, anxiety/panic attacks, but things don't always go the way we want them to, fellow survivor Shiro, hurt!lance, not really tho, will add tags as I go along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-10-29 07:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10849335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chyeahlex16/pseuds/Chyeahlex16
Summary: According to Lance, he has a great life. A large family full of younger kids running around a cozy house, a stern father and a strong, loving mother, a large dog full of love for his owners, lots of space to run around and grow in the backyard. Only light and happiness, no tragedy to speak of. But this is far from the truth.They’ll never know. If he has anything to say about it, no one will ever know the real truth.-A journey following Lance as he comes to terms with his past and sexuality in a way he couldn't around his family on earth.(Basically a very personal self-projection on Lance. Some material can be triggering, but I'm keeping it as vague as possible for obvious reasons.)





	1. Master of Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a very personal self-projection on Lance. This is a therapeutic work with heavy themes, but I will be keeping flashbacks and nightmares very vague and choppy because, well, it's not easy to write such an experience you've lived through, you know? That being said, they can be triggering to some people, so please please please be cautious and consider whether or not you will be okay reading this! I don't want to cause anybody pain or bring up bad memories or anything like that. 
> 
> Some info about this fic:  
> -They've been in space for about two years  
> -Zarkon is still undefeated  
> -Updates won't be extremely regular bc life is busy rn but I'll try my best
> 
> Anyway, read on.

Secrets are hard to keep when there’s only six people on a giant space ship. There’s really nowhere to truly hide, and all secrets are bound to come into light at one point. Like Shiro’s love for old songs, which he likes to sing to himself when he thinks he’s alone in the showers after training. Or Pidge’s affinity for small spaces and crawling around the castle’s vent systems, discovered only when she sneezed above Hunk’s room and responded to his automatic, “Bless you.” Or Hunk’s secret habit of animatedly eating his food, talking to it and making it respond to him in a full conversation when he thought he was alone, or Keith’s remarkable drawing skills, discovered when Pidge stole the sketchbook he’d asked Allura for a few months into their journey through space saving the universe. 

But Lance—Lance is a master of keeping secrets. There is a strategy to it, one that he learned through years and years of practice and experience. The trick, you see, is to lay yourself out there like an open book. Give them pieces of yourself before they can come to look for it. Speak and reveal as much about yourself as possible; the more words to fill the space, the more there is to distract from the ugly underneath the fluff he spouts. You give enough that they are satisfied and don’t ask for more; you give more than enough, and they’ll never want more. You give them so much that they can’t stand to hear any more. 

According to Lance, he has a great life. A large family full of younger kids running around a cozy house, a stern father and a strong, loving mother, a large dog full of love for his owners, lots of space to run around and grow in the backyard. Only light and happiness, no tragedy to speak of. But this is far from the truth. 

They’ll never know. If he has anything to say about it, no one will ever know the real truth. 

No one will ever know about the darker corners of his house, the hands that pulled and held him there for years when he was younger. No one will ever know what happened in those dark corners, in those dark closets, of the scars near his pelvis nor how they got there. No one will ever know of the events that took place in that house, events that scarred him enough to suffer panic attacks and nightmares well into the years that followed and still haunt him to the present day. 

For Lance is a master of secrets. He knows how to hide. He knows how to hide his nightmares, his flashbacks, his anxiety attacks. He knows the signs, knows when to get away from his team before he loses it, knows how to cover it all up when it’s over and return to them with smiles and jokes as though he hadn’t just cried himself to a pounding headache. As if he hadn’t clenched his hands into fists so hard his nails had pierced the skin of his palms. As if he hadn’t just had flashbacks to a time so fucking horrid that he couldn’t shake the feeling of his skin crawling, too tight for him to be comfortable. It’s second nature for him to hide everything behind a smile and an annoying joke meant to turn all eyes and attention away from him. He’s been doing it for so long, it’s easy as breathing. 

Like putting on a mask.


	2. They Don't Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a training session takes a turn for the worse.  
> -
> 
> He trembles all over like a fucking leaf and he prays and prays that this will end soon, that it’ll be _over_ , that he’ll just _die_ so it can finally _end_. He feels like he’s dying anyway, suffocating and burning, that heavy weight pressing on his chest without mercy. He can feel those hands, feel the scars on his body prick with the memory of pain. And all he can do is cry and let it pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There will be a flashback, nothing extremely explicit, but if it made me take a step back while writing it, I know it could be potentially triggering to any of you out there, so please read with caution! It's not much, but it's there, just letting you know. There's also a panic attack, not incredibly explicit, but there. 
> 
> Thank you so much for the support and the comments that some of you left, you have no idea how much I appreciated them all. You're all wonderful <3

If there was a specific word that Lance would use to describe what happened to him between the ages of four to nine, it would probably be _unspeakable_.

Unspeakable, as in, if he never had to speak or think about any of the events that took place during those years in all those dark corners and closets, away from supervisory eyes, it would be too soon. Unspeakable, as in, he would rather cut out his own tongue and never speak again before uttering a single word about those years and that person—that _demon_ that changed his life in ways he would never forget. 

His cousin Arturo was quite possibly the most revered family member in his whole family—extended and nuclear alike—next to his older sister Valencia. He was a star soccer player on his high school team, fairly smart and good in his studies, a 17-year-old boy with a bright future and charismatic personality. He was often entrusted with the care of the younger children during family parties, along with Valencia. But he always somehow managed to get Lance alone, every damn time. 

It was these times that Lance always had nightmares about. Almost always the very first time, imprinted in his young brain. It was like the saying went; you always remember the bad times the most. And what had started out as a celebratory party for his older sister graduating high school turned into the beginning of the decline of his childhood, his innocence. 

The dreams always started out the same way. And he was always helpless to stop anything from happening. He was forced to watch the events play out like a fucking horror movie, knowing full well what was going to happen, the train wreck impending. 

“Hey, Lancey boy,” he says cheerfully, finding four-year-old Lance playing in the dirt with some toys. “Whatcha doin’ here by yourself?”

“Playing trucks!” Lance announces happily, lifting one of his toys for the older boy to examine. 

Arturo hums appreciatively, eyeing Lance. “Wanna play a game with me?” 

_No_ , Lance thinks. _No I don’t want to play a game with you, you son of a bitch._

He watches his four-year-old self, ever so innocent and trusting, nod at his older cousin, taking the outstretched hand and standing to follow his older cousin deeper into the woods behind the fence. 

The scene changes, and suddenly little Lance is standing stiff with extreme discomfort and alarm, tiny hands over Arturo’s to keep them from moving any further than they’ve gone. Older Lance feels his skin crawl, burning in the exact places they rest on little Lance’s body. “Come on, Lancey boy, it’s just a little game.” Little Lance keeps his hands on his older cousin’s, still uncomfortable and uncertain, keeping them from wandering. “A little game,” Arturo repeats, hands moving despite Lance’s trying to stop them. “Our little secret, between you and me.” 

There’s nothing to stop the tears from rushing down both Lances’ faces, nothing to stop the hands from roaming, nothing to stop Arturo from doing this and worse for the next five years. 

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

The angry screeching of the Altean equivalent of an alarm clock startles Lance out of his sleep and, mercifully, out of his nightmare. He sits up in a rush, adrenaline coursing through him for a good ten seconds before he remembers where he is. He is not in the woods behind his backyard. He is not in a dark closet. He is not four years old anymore. 

With a sigh, he turns off the alarm and groans his way out of bed and to his private bathroom, starting up his morning routine. He has about an hour to get ready for breakfast, more than he’ll actually need, but he always makes sure he has ample time. He never knows how wrecked he’ll be after a nightmare, or whether or not he’ll start the day off with a panic attack right off the bat. There are so many ways his day could start. He needs to be prepared for them all. 

Today he has dark bags under his eyes, darker than his normal dark skin tone; that calls for extra concealer under his eyes, but other than that he’s pretty okay for the day. He can’t help staring himself down a little longer in the mirror today, his blue eyes staring back at him. Hollow. Empty. He feels empty, despite all this time having passed. He’s long since given up hope that one day he’ll be able to look in the mirror and feel or see anything other than the emptiness he feels. 

He dresses in his earth clothes and heads out to the dining room, counting his steps in his head as he goes. He’s terrible at math, always was, but counting his steps always grounds him when he’s on the edge. And he’s definitely on the edge now, after another nightmare. This marks the third day in a row he’s woken up to from one. They aren’t usually this frequent; he doesn’t want to think about what this might mean. He isn’t sure he’s ready for an impending breakdown; not here, not after so long without one. 

They’ve been in space for about two years now, and he’s been able to keep all of this under wraps quite well. No one suspects anything amiss about him, and he’s worked hard to keep it that way. He’ll be damned if he slips up now. 

“Morning, everybody!” Lance chirps as he waltzes into the dining room. He takes his normal seat beside a stoic Keith, who greets him with only an obligatory tip of his chin. Lance ignores the flutter he feels in his stomach from the small glance sent his way. 

“Morning, Lance,” Hunk replies, a slightly sleepy smile thrown his way. Pidge gives him a small smile in return, to which Lance gives a bright grin.

“Good morning, paladins,” Allura says as she briskly enters the room and takes her seat at the head of the table. “We’ve another day full of training for you all. I believe today we’ll work on sparing and hand-to-hand combat. You all need to work on that, especially Hunk and Lance, for you both have long-range weapons. It’s good to keep yourselves well-rounded on the battlefield.”

They discuss this here and there throughout the meal, Shiro backing Allura up and pairing them up together. 

“Hunk, you’ll spar with Keith today. Lance will spar with me, and we can all rotate who we spar with. Pidge, you’ll be out of the first rotation.” 

Pidge grins at Hunk and Lance teasingly. _Okay_ , Lance thinks as they all get up to walk to the training room. _Sparring with Shiro. Shouldn’t be too bad. Just gotta stay on my game._

Hunk and Keith go first. Hunk is definitely bigger than Keith, who uses his smaller size to his advantage. Shiro calls out to Hunk while they spar, telling him to use his strength and bigger size to his own advantage. It takes a few knock downs, but Hunk eventually manages to catch one of Keith’s kicks and pin him down on the ground. 

“Yeah! Go Hunk!” Lance cheers from the sidelines, shooting his best friend a grin. Hunk beams at him, panting with effort. 

“Alright Lance, we’re up,” Shiro says, motioning toward the mat. Lance follows, his cheery demeanor dimming as he reigns it in to focus on not getting his ass kicked within the first ten seconds.

He and Shiro circle each other for a few seconds, watching the other for the first move. Suddenly Shiro strikes out with a quick jab at Lance, who narrowly avoids it by ducking at the last second and whirling around to face the older man as a leg comes for his side. Lance blocks the kick and delivers a jab to Shiro’s unprotected side. It lands, but he didn’t think it would, and hadn’t put any real power behind it. Shiro takes the opportunity to swipe Lance’s feet out from under him and send the younger boy sprawling on the ground, first round over. 

“Good job, Lance,” Shiro praises, reaching a hand to help Lance up. “Again. Keep your feet light and never take your eyes off me, alright?”

Lance nods with a huff, training his eyes on his opponent and falling into his ready stance. He feels lighter, adrenaline loosening and charging his muscles at the same time. This time they don’t waste any time; Shiro strikes with jabs in rapid succession, all of which Lance manages to block. He’s sweating with the effort, but he’s elated that he’s managed to stick it out this far. He attempts a few counterattacks, a few kicks and swipes, but Shiro’s too good for that to work. _I have to get creative_ , Lance thinks. _I’m not gonna get anywhere by following the rules._

And idea comes to him, one that is probably super stupid, but at this point Shiro is going to beat him if he doesn’t switch things up. _Fuck it, I guess. What have I got to lose?_ Keeping his eyes trained on Shiro’s so as not to give himself away, Lance gives a few sharp jabs toward Shiro’s upper body before scurrying back a few steps. Shiro falters, caught off guard for a split second, but that split second is all Lance needs. Without a second thought, Lance barrels into Shiro’s midsection as hard as he can.

They go tumbling down with a loud huff from Shiro, Lance pinning him down on the mat beneath them. Shiro can only gaze up at him with wide eyes, stunned momentarily. “Yeah!” Lance cheers, lifting his hands above him in victory. But his victory is short-lived when Shiro decides he isn’t going down that easily and flips them over, pinning Lance down by straddling his waist and holding his wrists immobile above his head.

Everything goes wrong in that second. Lance is caught in the past and the present, back to a time when he was about four and held in this very position against everything in his will. He was helpless and weaker then, small and unable to defend himself against his abuser. But Lance in the present is not four years old anymore. Lance in the present is strong and knows how to defend himself. Which is exactly what present Lance does. 

In a flurry of movement with strength and speed that nobody knew Lance possessed, he wrenches himself out of Shiro’s grip and kicks Shiro off of him, following Shiro’s body where it is flung and pinning him down in return, knee on Shiro’s abdomen and elbow at his throat. _Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me_ , he screams in his head; he doesn’t dare utter the words out loud. The fight-or-flight haze recedes from his mind slowly as he realizes what he’s done. With a start, he drops his hold on the bewildered Shiro, chest heaving with fearful breaths. He can feel the impending anxiety attack creeping up on him like an unwanted hand up his spine, the tightness of his skin spreading from his chest to the rest of him. He needs to get out. He needs to get out _now_.

But his team is staring at him in something akin to concern now, and he knows he can’t leave yet. _They can’t know. They can’t know._

“Looks like I win, Shiro!” Lance chirps, putting up his best smile. He steps away from Shiro, but offers his leader a hand to help him up. Shiro takes it, still looking dazed as he nods slowly at Lance.

“Yeah,” he says. “You sure did. Are you okay, Lance?”

Lance scoffs. “Who, me? I’m great, like always, man. Are _you_ okay? I threw you kinda hard there.” Lance laughs, and Hunk joins him, Pidge snickering along too. _Gotta get out. Gotta get out now._

Shiro rolls his eyes, smiling nonetheless. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I’ll put you up against Keith next if you don’t watch it.” 

_Get out. Get out. Get out now._

Attention diverts from him and onto Pidge and Hunk as they take their places on the mat. Shiro and Keith watch with critical attention, and that’s when Lance escapes. The anxiety is here full force, phantom burn of wandering hands lighting up his skin in the worst way. Memories flash left and right, and there’s nothing he can do to stop them. He needs a place to hide, a place to let this pass. Because that’s all he can do; let it pass. He’s long since stopped trying to stop them from coming. The harder he tries, the worse they get. 

He runs down the hallways until he gets to his room and locks the automatic door behind him, barely managing to do so before he crumples to the ground. Tears burn his eyes and fall down his cheeks, and his breaths don’t fill his lungs; they come in short gasps, shuddering and shaking his shoulders. He trembles all over like a fucking leaf and he prays and prays that this will end soon, that it’ll be over, that he’ll just die so it can finally end. He feels like he’s dying anyway, suffocating and burning, that heavy weight pressing on his chest without mercy. He can feel those hands, feel the scars on his body prick with the memory of pain. And all he can do is cry and let it pass.  
He isn’t sure how long he sits there with his head between his knees before he can breathe again, before he’s finally capable of coherent thought, but it feels like hours. 

_Shhh_ , he comforts himself. _Shhh, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re not that little kid anymore. You have to be strong. You’re okay. You’re okay. You have to be strong._

Shiro’s face flashes in his mind. 

_He didn’t mean to do it_ , he croons in his head, body rocking on the ground slightly. _He didn’t mean to—he didn’t know. He doesn’t know. None of them knows. You can’t let them know._ Panic constricts in his chest as he realizes he left training early without any of them knowing. They’ll be upset with him for sure, and they’ll ask questions, and he’ll have to think of some believable excuse they’ll believe. A lie. Anything but the truth.  
He stands up shakily, staggering to his personal bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. _Fuck_. He looks like shit, to be frank. His hair is mussed, his eyes, cheeks, and nose red from crying. He can see his hands shaking as he runs them through his hair. He may look like shit, but he’s picked up a lot of tricks to fix himself after episodes like this over the years. He begins the routine, murmuring to himself as he goes through the motions. 

“You can’t let them know,” he mumbles to his reflection. “You have to be strong. You can’t let them know. You’re okay. You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay…”

He plasters a smile to his face and walks out of his room, steady on the outside but trembling on the inside, the aftertaste of fear on his tongue. He still isn’t sure how long he’s been gone, but he goes by the training room to see if his team is still there; it’s empty. That puts a knot of worry in his gut, but he pushes it aside as he strides confidently into the kitchen. The majority of the team is there, save for Pidge, Allura, and Coran. The remaining three look up at him from their seats at the table. 

“There you are, Lance,” Hunk says, flashing him a look of curiosity. “Where did you go? You missed the rest of training and nobody knew where you’d gone.”

And so, he spins his story, hiding behind the mask of his smile and bravado, throwing jokes and hand gestures, all grandiose and bright energy on the outside, so much that they quickly tire of him and stop their interrogation, moving their focus to the others entering the room, and then the food. _Good_ , he thinks, his mask holding in place with every interaction he has with his teammates. 

_This is how it should be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Your comments and kudos and bookmarks are all immensely appreciated <3 See you in the next update ^-^


	3. The First Crack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which one of Lance's deepest fears comes to haunt him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing too terrible this time. Just a panic attack, but nothing too explicit. 
> 
> In good news, we have some Keith and Lance interaction! Sorry if it seems a little OOC, I don't like when their dynamic is written so... extremely. I like to think they don't always argue and are quite nice to each other sometimes. It takes a lot of effort to constantly fight with someone and at the end of the day, it's just a little tiring I guess. Anyway, there's that, and some caring Team Voltron this time around too! I hope you enjoy.

“Pidge, barrel roll and sweep left! Keith, take the front line with Hunk! Lance, bank left and fall back with Pidge!”

Shiro barks his orders into the coms, everyone immediately falling into place as they go through the formation. They’ve done it a thousand times during their two years out in space, but it never hurts to brush up on their formations for battle. It is one that they’ve had to use quite a lot against the Galra ships in the past, highly successful in missions. Today is a training kind of day, a day to get into their lions and practice, solidifying everything into muscle memory. Formations like this are practically second nature to Team Voltron, but it doesn’t hurt to keep up the practice.

Truthfully, however, Allura just doesn’t want them having too much idle time. The Galra have been silent as of late, and she doesn’t want them to get too used to the lack of attacks. She wants them ready to fight at the drop of the hat, fully prepared. And this means plenty of training on the deck and in their lions.

“Alright Paladins, that’s enough!” Allura calls into their coms. “You’ve all done excellent today. I’m glad to see you all taking orders and instruction seriously and immediately. Now, come back to the castle and unwind. We’ll have dinner in a few vargas.”

 With relieved sighs, the Paladins fly back to the castle with idle chatter, complimenting each other on their performances during the formations. Lance lands Blue in her hangar, patting the controls affectionately. “Great work out there, beautiful,” he praises her, earning a rumble and wave of affection in his mind. Her presence is calming and warm in his psyche, reassuring.

He hops down from her open jaws and makes his way over to his team in the middle of the hangar. They all look as tired as he feels, slumped in the shoulders, but overall satisfied with their work today.

“I’m gonna go shower in my room and get to cooking before Coran takes over too much,” Hunk says, giving a small wave over his shoulder as he walks away.

Pidge takes off her helmet and shakes out her hair, sliding her glasses back on. “Yeah, I’m gonna go work on some stuff,” she says vaguely. “I’ll be in my room or on deck with Allura if anyone needs me.”

Lance turns to his remaining teammates, small smirk in place. “Well, if you need me,” he says, jerking a thumb to his chest, “I’ll be showering in the training room. Might spar with the bots before I do.”

“I’ll spar with you if you want,” Keith offers, surprising Lance. He blinks at him for a moment before nodding. They wave at Shiro and walk off, keeping in step with each other the whole way. Once in the training room, they walk to the mat and settle into their fighting stances, eyeing each other for the first move.

Keith, true to his own character, lashes out first with several severe punches that Lance narrowly avoids. Normally Lance likes to plan his own attacks, take in the data from his other opponent and use it to his advantage, but there’s no planning with Keith. No, Keith follows his instincts, a true opportunist in moment. The only way Lance is able to keep up with him is by following his own instincts; punch first, think later.

It works quite well for him, actually. He lands a few good hits on Keith, surprising both himself and the other boy. The only other strategy Lance can think of to make any headway against Keith is to do what his team thinks he does best: talk.

“Cut me a break here, Keith,” he huffs, dodging another kick aimed for his legs. “I’m not on your level _yet._ ”

Keith lets out a series of huffs that Lance realizes is laughter. “Shut up,” Keith says, swiping at him with a right hook. “You’ve improved a lot since we got here in space. Especially since training at the Garrison.”

This stuns Lance for a second, but it only takes a second for Keith to knock the air out of him with a punch to the stomach. He recovers quickly, catching the second punch coming his way and twisting the arm behind Keith’s back and holding him there without a second thought. Keith, utterly shocked at the maneuver, doesn’t struggle.

“Wait,” Lance says, head close to Keith’s. “You remember me training at the Garrison?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Keith huffs, suddenly defensive. He twists out of Lance’s grip and puts some distance between them, light on his feet and ready to launch himself into fighting again. “We were in the same class, weren’t we?”

But that was just it. _They weren’t._ “Uh, _no,_ we weren’t in the same class,” Lance says, eyes wide, fists ready. “I had instructor Lawrence. You had Santos.”

Perhaps it is weird that Lance knew who Keith’s instructor was—and that he still remembered years later—but if Keith thinks so, he doesn’t show it. If anything, Lance can see his cheeks flush with chagrin, further blowing his mind.

“Okay, so maybe I snuck into a few of your classes when I had my free period,” Keith admits, and promptly showers Lance with a flurry of furious fists.

A few connect, but Lance is still working through the fact that Keith not only remembers him from the Garrison—from their _first_ year too, mind you—but that he also snuck into his classes for reasons _beyond_ him.

“ _Why?_ ” Lance asks incredulously, his body going through the motions of a roundhouse kick that Keith blocks and returns. Lance ducks under the kick and jabs at Keith’s side, and then scurries back a few steps to give them both some space to breathe.

“I heard a lot about the guy who was my self-proclaimed rival and I was a little curious, okay?” Keith hisses, cheeks extremely red by now. “So, I went and observed and you _sucked_.”

The trance Lance is in suddenly ends, like a bubble popping. He scoffs, heat rushing to his face in embarrassment for his younger self’s skills and the hopefulness that grew in his chest at Keith’s interest. “Of course I sucked,” he says defensively. “I was like fifteen—and the only fighting experience I really had was wrestling with my brothers and sisters. When you’re the middle child, you learn how to get dodgy pretty quick.”

As if to demonstrate, he skirts away from Keith’s advances, not a single blow landing on him. Keith’s brow quirks and his eyes glint with a challenge. Lance smirks, his body responding instinctively now against Keith’s attempts to grab or swing at him. Adrenaline courses through him, dangerously close to remembering bad times, but keeping them at bay as he looks at Keith and reminds himself: _you’re not a kid anymore. You’re not helpless anymore. You’re not four years old anymore. You can take care of yourself now. Keith wouldn’t hurt you like that. You’re safe here._

“What else did you learn from all those siblings?” Keith asks, and Lance is grateful for his distracting words, words that remind him of different times, when things weren’t all bad. Times out of dark corners and closets, surrounded by his brothers and sisters as they play-fought together.

Lance smirks again, weaving in and out of Keith’s reach. “I’m a great liar and an even better actor,” Lance says, and this is the sole truth. Sure, it came out of getting into trouble and trying to get his way out of it, but a lot of it came from trying to cover up marks and scars on his body that hadn’t been there before, that had no logical explanation behind them. It came from waking up screaming in bed from nightmares of _him_ and spinning stories of nightmares about monsters and silly fears that _normal_ little kids had. It taught him how to build his mask and keep it in place like armor, protecting him from anything else that could hurt him. It is all he knows.

Keith seems to pause at that, eyes slightly distant and calculating at the same time. Lance doesn’t waste the opportunity, feigning left with a punch that Keith brings his hands up to block, and instead dropping to the ground and swiping Keith’s legs out from under him with a sweep of his leg. Keith falls with a thud and an _oof!_ Lance pounces, hands on Keith’s shoulders to pin him, but keeping his body off of the other boy’s. The incident with Shiro still weighs heavy in his mind, and he doesn’t want anything close to a repeat of that.

Keith stares up at him dazedly, and his mouth slowly inches up in an impressed smirk. His eyes are shining with the buzz of training adrenaline, face flushed into a pretty pink color, and Lance knows he’s staring, but he can’t help himself. Not when Keith looks so damn _pretty_. It’s a thought that makes Lance startle, ripping his eyes away from Keith’s stupid pretty face and down to his own hands on the raven-haired boy’s slender shoulders, warm under his trademark black shirt. _Can’t think like that,_ he chastises himself.

“You got me good, pretty boy,” Keith says lowly, his smirk lifting higher. And damn, what the smirk fucking does to Lance’s heart—it picks up its pace double time, and takes his breath away, and he doesn’t know _why_. _What the hell? What is happening to me?_

Lance gives Keith a triumphant grin, pushing all those thoughts out of his head for now. “Pretty boy, huh?” Just the name gives him goosebumps and makes his heart thump faster. “You didn’t do so bad yourself. I’m getting better—good enough to take _you_ down.”

“Hey,” Keith says argumentatively, and Lance moves his hands to help him up. “You may have distracted me, but I’ll be nice and give it to you.”

Lance gasps exaggeratedly. “Be still my beating heart! Keith Kogane, being nice to _me?!_ What has the world come to? I never thought this day would come—I promised myself I wouldn’t cry!” He lets loose all the theatrics, hand over his eyes to hide nonexistent tears, high pitched voice to sound as though he was about to cry. Keith rolls his eyes.

“I can be nice,” he argues, shoving at Lance’s shoulder as the brown-haired boy laughs. “I just choose not to be because you’re annoying.”

Lance sighs contentedly as they make their way to the showers. “You like it, though,” he quips, poking Keith’s shoulder.

“You wish,” he scoffs.

They get to the showers and undress in silence, only Lance’s humming notifying anybody who might be there that they were present. His humming turns into soft singing as they get into showers beside each other, and then into a full-fledged performance when Keith neither complains nor demands he stop.

“ _A light in the room,_ ” he sings softly, shampooing his hair. His eyes are closed, but he can feel Keith’s gaze on him above the wall dividing the showers. _“It was you who was standing there. Tried, it was true; as your glance met my stare… But your heart drifted off; like the land split by sea. I tried to go, to follow, to kneel down at your feet…”_

The song was one that he used to play on repeat when the memories and everything got super bad. It was a comforting song about forgiveness and breaking free of a burden that is weighing you down, and honestly that’s all Lance really wants—freedom from all this pain, all these memories. He wishes it had never happened to him. He wishes he could forget. Sometimes, when it’s really bad, he wishes he was dead so the pain would end. He knows that’s not the right mindset to have, but in his frame of mind, he can’t help it. Not when this bullshit plagues him every single goddamned day of his life. He wants to be free of these chains that hold him down, freedom from these demons that hold him down and suffocate him in every dream and waking moment. But there’s no way out that he can see.

“ _I will break down the gates of heaven.”_ His eyes are still closed, but his throat tightens a bit and he can feel tears squeeze out of his closed eyes, hotter than the shower water, but they’re hidden enough that it’s not noticeable that they’re tears. He tries calming down, letting the words coast out of him as he sings them, coaxing his heart into a more secure emotional ground. “ _A thousand angels stand waiting for me. Oh, take my heart and I’ll lay down my weapons. Break my shackles and set me free…”_

He stops there, because if he goes on any further he’ll turn into a sobbing mess, stuck in the past and stuck in the present for who knows how long. He opens his eyes and lets out a small sigh, turning to look at Keith and jerking at the expression the other boy wears. It’s one of awe and admiration, sure, but also such intense scrutiny that Lance has a mini heart attack, feeling completely exposed and panicked at that sensation. His defenses kick up on high alert, shooting Keith a weird look.

“What?” he says, and that seems to snap Keith out of whatever little daze he was in.

“Nothing,” he replies, but he still watches Lance closely, as if he isn’t sure how to place him. “You have a nice voice, you know.”

Lance’s eyes widen at the unexpected compliment. He snorts, but it’s self-deprecating. “Thanks, I guess,” he says, shrugging. He’s silent as he washes the shampoo out of his hair. “It runs in the family, in a way. My older sister, Valencia—her voice is killer. My brother Carlos and my little sister Cecilia too. We get it from both our parents. They were in their church choir when they were teens, and they did a bunch of gigs when they were super popular back in the day. Weddings, _Quinceañeras_ , school dances—all that stuff. They were really good. My dad was more into it than my mom, though; he and his band were gonna go all out and get signed and all that. But then he got my mom pregnant with Val, and all those dreams went down the toilet.”

It’s a story Lance has heard a million times, but he loves sharing it anyway. He loves talking about his family—the good things, anyway. Keith listens with rapt attention, hands mechanically going through the motions of washing himself as Lance continues to talk animatedly about his family. He interjects with a few questions here and there, keeping the other boy going on and on until they’re both clean and ready to get out of the showers. They have a little banter as they dry off and change, pushing each other playfully as they walk out of the showers. There’s an intimate air about them, one that they both feel, acknowledge, and don’t want to break. But all too soon, they reach the doors and have to go their separate ways.

“I’m gonna see where the others are at,” Keith says, walking backwards down the hall.

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Lance calls, walking the opposite direction to get to the hallway with their rooms. “Goodnight, Keith.”

“Goodnight, Lance,” Keith responds with a small smile on his face before turning and jogging down the hall, disappearing around the corner. Lance shakes his head fondly. The guy can’t just walk anywhere, can he? He’s gotta get places fast, no patience for dilly-dallying.

He sighs, alone now, and turns to walk in the direction of the elevator to get to the floor with their rooms when the unthinkable happens.

There’s a loud, giant shudder that vibrates through the castle, knocking Lance off balance and to his knees, and then the lights flicker off, leaving him shrouded in completely pitch black darkness.

His breath catches in his throat, pulse already spiking and ears ringing at the utter silence of the hall he’s in. Sweat pops up on his skin and his breaths are stuttering in his lungs as fear and dread fill him. He staggers to his feet, hands spread out in front of him—it’s so _dark_ , he can’t even see his hands in front of his face. _No, no, no, no, please no, oh my god._ He can hear that voice already, his demons plaguing him as his vision struggles to adjust to the pitch black that suffocates him. He has to find something, _anything_ , to make this stop, some kind of light source—but his feet are stuck to the ground, fear and panic freezing him in place.

It’s one of his biggest fears, being in the dark. He normally takes every precaution against it—in fact, only two months into their life in space on the castle, he’d come to Coran in a bit of a tizzy one night, having put aside his pride to ask the older man for something like a nightlight. He’d put it off for so long because he hated to admit that he was afraid of the dark, but dealing with the fear head-on—that was far worse than looking like a little kid in front of someone he respected. But Coran didn’t treat him like a little kid; instead, he thanked Lance for coming to him with a need and gave him an Altean crystal that lit up his room in a comforting blue glow.

_My crystal_ , he thinks amidst his increasing panic. The thought spurs him into action, breaking him of his frozen stance and making him stumble down the hall. The whispers are deafening in his head, and he swears he can see figures and feel them running hands over his skin, feel hot breath rustling against his ears. He clamps his hands on his ears in a futile attempt to stop the voices, but it’s no use—the voices are in his head and grating on his nerves in the worst way. He wants to stop this, _god_ does he want to stop this, but there’s nothing he can do. Helplessness rises in a lump in his throat, and he tries to stifle the whines coming out of his throat.

 He trips up dark stairwells until he reaches the floor his room resides on, and he does his best to run down the hall to his own room, but he can’t tell which is his in the darkness. Desperation rises in his chest, and he picks a door at random, hand on the pad, and in that moment realization hits him and his heart sinks, any feelings of hope replaced by despair. The castle is out of power, which means the doors are out of commission. His crystal is locked in his room, hopelessly out of his reach.

The breath is knocked out of his lungs by despair, and as if powered by the realization he’d come to, the voices pick up again, swarming him like a large horde of gnats. No matter what he does, they don’t leave him alone, picking at old wounds mercilessly, unearthing things he’s tried for years to bury away. He slides down to the ground with his back against the door, head between his knees and hands tangled in his hair as he desperately tries to regain control against this assault before he’s too far gone. His stomach roils with the onslaught of emotions and his body-racking sobs, and for a dreadful moment he’s so close to throwing up; but the moment passes and he continues to take deep breaths and struggle against the memories of his past.

He isn’t sure how much time passes, but his sobs have turned into occasional sniffles, though his face is still wet, and he’s gone from tugging violently at his hair to gently rocking against the door, head between his knees when suddenly there’s a ringing in his ear and a new sound coming to him, scaring away the whispers: Hunk’s voice.

“Lance! Lance, buddy, are you out here?”

Lance slowly looks in the direction of the voice, still incredibly out of it. His head pounds with a headache and he isn’t exactly sure what’s real and what’s a nightmare playing before his eyes, but he’s pretty sure that the bobbing lights coming toward him from the end of the hallway are real. He recognizes them as crystals, much like the one Coran gave him, all varying different colors. He hears a loud gasp, and suddenly all the lights are bobbing frantically and drawing nearer at a much faster speed than before. He belatedly realizes what he must look like after having sobbed and tugged his hair to the point of an excruciating headache. Before they reach him, he wipes his face, but he knows it’s no use. The state he’s in is too wrecked to hide behind a smile.

He's bathed in multiple colors when they reach him: Hunk, Coran, Shiro, and Keith, all holding crystals in their hands. Hunk kneels down to his level, eyes taking in his worn-out appearance the way Lance can feel the others doing. His gut tightens at that. _They can’t know. I can’t let them know._

So he puts the mask in place.

“Ha, about time you guys found me,” Lance says playfully, but his voice cracks from sobs that tore out of his throat, and he can’t stifle the sniffle that follows his comment. Hunk puts a hand on his knee.

“One of Pidge’s inventions caused a blowout on the ship’s power. She’s working on fixing it with the Princess already,” Shiro explains, watching Lance carefully.

“Hey buddy, you okay?” Hunk asks gently. And it’s that gentleness, in his voice and in his touch, that breaks Lance’s resolve, that stops the bravado and the retort on his tongue. His grin wavers, and tears prick his eyes again, but he’ll be _damned_ if he breaks down in front of them like this. _They can’t know. I can’t let them know._

“Yeah, man, I’m fine,” he lies, grin fading and the truth worming its way out of him. “It’s just… I don’t like the dark.”

His voice is small and he sounds so vulnerable, but he can’t help it. His usual attitude is so far out of reach that there’s nothing stopping him from letting his guard down for this split second; he’s floating far out of his familiar comfort zone, exposed and unable to cover up what he’s so desperate to hide.

His teammate’s reaction is immediate; they shift closer to him, as if they can protect him from whatever it is he’s afraid of. If only they knew _. But they can never know._

“Then I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner, Lance,” Keith says, nothing but sincerity and concern in his voice. Lance can’t help but look at him, something tugging at his heart. Hunk squeezes his shoulder as if to solidify the statement, and Lance shoots him a small smile of thanks.

“Come now, my boy,” Coran says gently, oh so gently. “We’ve got you. How about we congregate back to the deck with Pidge and the Princess, eh?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Shiro agrees. “You alright with that, Lance?”

He’ll never be able to express it, but he appreciates immensely that Shiro gives him a choice, even if he doesn’t explicitly state it. “Yeah,” Lance says. “Sounds great.”

Keith steps forward and holds out a hand to help Lance stand. He takes it, letting Keith pull him up—and did he imagine the squeeze Keith gave him before he let go? He gives Keith a small smile nonetheless, trying to ignore the tingle of his hand where their skin touched. Hunk pulls him close in a hug, wrapping his arm around Lance’s shoulders. He appreciates that arm, and the pat on the shoulder Shiro gives him, as well as the reassuring squeeze of his arm that Coran gives, plus the safe presence of Keith standing beside him.

The others walk a few steps ahead, and Lance allows himself one last sob, contained and silent into Hunk’s chest, overwhelmed by the support and care from his teammates, his family. He gives Hunk a thankful squeeze and takes a step back, leaning into Hunk’s side and letting his best friend guide him down the hall as the others fall into step with him. Coran gives him a crystal of his own, a second one in addition to the nightlight in his room. Lance doesn’t think about the way he nearly broke down in front of them. He doesn’t think about how dangerously close that break down was. He doesn’t think about how wildly out of control he felt, nor about how he failed to hide his distress with his mask on or what that means.

He can’t think about the crack in his mask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Lance sang is "Run to You" by Pentatonix. It actually holds deep meaning to me and my journey, so there's some self-projection going on there, haha. I've also decided I'm going to revoke my anonymity because... well, this is my story, albeit with some changes to make it easier for me to write, and I want to be able to talk to you guys about it too if y'all wanted to talk. I'm gonna leave my tumblr here too: bi-ladin.tumblr.com   
> It's important to me, you know? I'm not sure I'm making any sense, but yeah. I guess I don't even really need to explain myself anyway, but here's an attempt. And as for updates; I'm gonna try to update at least every seven days if I can, but things are hectic with life right now cuz I'm graduating in a few weeks, so I can't guarantee. Updates will probs be more like... If I have something, I'll post it. Which means very sporadic updates, but they'll come! Your feedback is so greatly appreciated, I can't say thank you enough. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to come talk to me, even if it isn't about this fic! <3


	4. Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a mission goes well until it doesn't, and Lance has to deal with the consequences and Allura's wrath. It does not bode well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: More flashbacks and panic attacks. This time, it's about closets.

Ever since Lance can remember, he’s always been physically affectionate with everybody. He’s always the first one to initiate contact, always the first to give someone a hug or a high five, or lean on someone’s shoulders or pull someone onto his lap. It was just how he kept himself grounded and openly expressed his mood without words; if he was linking arms or throwing his arms over people’s shoulders, he was in a good mood. But if he was leaning on people’s shoulders or lying in their laps, he was having a tough day.

Some days he was incredibly touchy, needing that extra touch from his teammates to ground him and keep away the bad thoughts. But other days, touch was the last thing he ever wanted. Other days, any physical contact was like a burn on his skin, unwanted and pushing him towards the invisible edge in his mind. It was days like those that he was his most quiet, his most reserved, drawing the least amount of attention to himself to avoid touch. He’s learned over the years the best tactics to avoid such contact, especially the best ways to avoid it from his teammates. Distractions come easily; all it takes is a few bad jokes and everyone is done with him anyway, leaving him alone to stay quiet and tamper down the sensitiveness running through his veins.

Today is a day like that, jumpstarted by a particularly terrible flashback in the morning before breakfast. It happens when he’s sluggishly waking up from sleep, thankfully dreamless, when he’s in a state between lucidity and the blanket of unconsciousness, where the line between reality and dreamland is the fuzziest.

It’s a memory he hasn’t thought of in a while, one that happened when he was six. It was a family party for Easter, plenty of cousins and aunts and uncles running around outside of Lance’s house. The family is all outside, enjoying the bright sunny; the adults are enjoying their beers, and the kids—having finished with their Easter egg hunt—are playing hide and seek. The boundaries of the game reside outside of the house—but Arturo has no boundaries, and just like every other time, he corners Lance and gets him alone, pulling him into the empty house.

There are a lot of things that Lance has come to hate due to Arturo and his abuse. The dark is one of them. Lack of choices. Harshly barked commands. Angry raised voices. Hard grips and unsolicited touches. Isolation. Dark closets…

The closet Arturo forces Lance into is one that he never ducked into for anything ever again in his time on earth. He remembers being stuffed in there, remembers begging to be let out, remembers sobbing and having a hand clamped over his mouth to muffle his sobs. He remembers everything that was done to him in that closet, all in the dark, with unbreathable air and nothing but harsh whispers telling him to shut up or Arturo would tell and get him in trouble. And Lance—Lance didn’t know any better. He didn’t know that he should’ve told someone about what Arturo was doing. He was six years old—barely four when it all began. How was he supposed to know? Who was he supposed to tell? Everyone _loved_ Arturo—how would anyone believe him when they thought Arturo could do no wrong?

He remembers Arturo shoving him out of the closet, gripping him by the wrist—yet another thing he hates to this day—and right into the lap of one of his aunts, Tia Claudia. She startles, catching him by the shoulders as Arturo lets him go and plasters a charming smile on his face.

“Ay! What are you two doing in there?” she laughs.

“Playing hide and seek!” Arturo laughs along, placing a hand with a bruising grip on Lance’s shoulder. He’s still crying, tears dampening his cheeks and sniffles bouncing his shoulders. He’s learned from all these experiences how to be a silent crier. “But Lance is a little baby—afraid of the dark. We need a new place to hide.”

Tia Claudia looks down at Lance with a disapproving look, reason for his tears fully believed. “Oh, Alejandro! You’re a big boy! You can’t let the monsters scare you!”

He just can’t help it, though. He can’t help the tears that escape when he finally comes to out of the flashback. He can’t help the five minutes he takes to stop shaking and calm the panic attack he would’ve had. He can’t help the feeling of phantom limbs skimming all over him in places they should’ve never been. He can’t help still being affected even after all these years, even when he’s galaxies away from his abuser in space.

_It’s all your fault, you know._

He can’t help the voices in his head either.

_You let him get away with all that shit. You **let** him do that shit to you. _

“Shut up,” he hisses aloud, running agitated hands through his hair. He has to do _something_ , _anything_ to stop the voices from pushing him over the edge into a full-fledged panic attack, so he wrenches himself off the bed and steps into the shower, fully clothed. The water is freezing cold, but it does the trick—his thoughts are so scrambled by the shock of the cold that it chases everything away, clearing his mind enough to peel his PJ’s off and properly shower. He emerges fifteen minutes later, dripping and feeling significantly better, but he already knows it’s going to be one of those days. He yearns for comfort, but the thought of anyone touching him sends him reeling and shuddering, lungs constricting in anxiety. He goes through his skin care routine and gives himself reminders aloud.

“You’re in control here in space,” he says to his reflection. “You have the option to say yes or no here. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You’re stronger now. You’re smarter now. You can take care of yourself now. You’re not four years old anymore. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

It’s almost as if his withdrawn, reticent behavior is immediately noticed by his team. He enters the room silently, lost in his thoughts, and the rest of Team Voltron is already there. He sits his usual seat between Keith and Hunk, eyes resting on the table, unseeing. It isn’t until the chatter of everyone talking quieted abruptly that he breaks out of his stupor, unnerved by the silence. Everyone looks at him curiously, Allura locking gazes with him immediately.

“Good morning, Lance,” she greets him. “Are you feeling alright?”

 _No,_ Lance wants to say. _No, I’m not okay. I feel like shit and I don’t like the way everyone is looking at me._

But they can’t know that. They can’t know anything. So he puts his mask in place and gives her a brilliant smile.

“I’m feeling great, Princess, thanks for asking,” he says with a wink and finger guns. She rolls her eyes but smiles nonetheless, looking somewhat relieved. It surprises Lance slightly, but she’s probably just relieved he didn’t blatantly flirt with her. The urge to do so didn’t arise as much as it had when they first began traveling the galaxies to save the universe together. He didn’t want to think too hard about why; he was afraid his eyes would flicker to the black-mulleted person on his right.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she chirps, “because we have a mission today, my Paladins. There’s a Galra prison on the edge of this galaxy that Coran, Pidge, and I have been monitoring closely these past two quintaints. Pidge seems to think—,”

“It might hold information on where they have my brother and father,” Pidge blurts from across the table. Allura looks at her forgivingly, but Pidge doesn’t look sorry for the interruption. “We have a plan for extraction of prisoners and information.”

“Yes, Shiro and I have pieced together a plan to make this happen.” She taps the middle of the table and a hologram pops up, a sort of blue print for what Lance assumes is the ship they’ll be breaking into. “We’re going to try to do this as quietly as possible. That means that Pidge and the Green Lion will be playing crucial parts in the plan. It goes like this: Keith and Lance will both be riding with Pidge in the Green Lion to get onto the ship through the cargo ports.” Allura points towards the bottom of the ship. “Shiro and Hunk will be on the outside using the cloaks Pidge hardwired onto their Lions to wait for your signal. Since their lions are the biggest, they will be transporting the prisoners. It’s a smaller prison, so they should fit. Pidge will go inside and unlock the prison doors, and Shiro and Hunk will guide them out and onto the lions. Once you’ve gotten all the information you can, you three will return to the Green Lion and come back to the castle. From there, we will jump to a friendly galaxy and take the prisoners to a peaceful planet willing to house them. Any questions?”

The plan seems straightforward, a get in and get out type of deal. No one has any questions, so they all continue to eat their breakfast. Lance pretends not to see the uneasy glances his friends share at his silence. He sits hunched in his seat, trying to make himself as small as possible in his seat. He can feel the heat of the bodies on either side of him; it makes his lungs feel tighter, adrenaline putting him on edge. When they finish breakfast, they all walk to their rooms to change into their suits and get to their lions. Lance feels weird leaving Blue behind, and one look at Keith tells him the other boy feels the same way about leaving Red. They sit tensely in Green as they launch through space towards the given coordinates of the prison. Pidge sits in her pilot seat with a determined expression on her face. It gives Lance strength, a bit of clearance in his head to refocus his thoughts on the mission and not on the crawling of his skin that won’t go away. There’s something in his gut that won’t go away, something that warns him of danger ahead. He feels like something’s coming, but he can’t for the life of him imagine _what_.

 _It’s probably just pre-mission jitters,_ he chastises himself. _Just focus._

Pidge activates Green’s invisibility cloak long before the prison ship comes into view. It’s an ugly hunk of metal floating desolately in space amid clusters of rocks. Clearly meant for things to enter, not escape. But that was about to change, now that Team Voltron was here to set things right.

Hunk and Shiro’s faces appear before Pidge, and Keith and Lance both lean in to see and been seen.

“We’re in position, Pidge,” Hunk says, face set in determination.

“We’re ready for your signal,” Shiro confirms. “Let us know when you’re at your checkpoints; onboard, in the control room, and when the doors are unlocked.”

Pidge nods, determination mirroring Hunk’s. “Got it. We’re leaving Green now.”

She unbuckles herself from her pilot seat and motions for Keith and Lance to follow her. Green opens her jaws and the three of them use their jets to propel themselves toward the cargo ports at the bottom of the ship. She tinkers with the panel on the outside of the port and the device she has on her gauntlet and has the port opening for them in seconds. They rush inside and she closes it behind them.

“We have to move fast before they send people to investigate why this thing opened when there isn’t any cargo scheduled to come in right now,” Pidge says, ushering them out of the cargo room and into a hallway. She has a map pulled up on the holographic screen from her gauntlet, directing them to the control deck of the ship according to plan. They hustle, skidding down hallways and avoiding the roaming patrols of Galra soldiers. Lance stays on hyperalert, that gut feeling roiling in his stomach the further along they go in their mission. He wishes it would dissipate, but forces that feeling aside; now is the time to focus on the mission. No time for distractions.

They finally make it to the control room, but hover in the alcoves above the doors, propelled up there by their jets. Pidge pulls out her holo screen again, scanning through it until she found what she was looking for. Her face lights up with a wicked grin, and she says, “Let’s give them a little break from their hard work in the control room, eh?”

It’s silent for a good minute before the doors to the control room open and five Galra soldiers are running out, seemingly harried as they scurry down the hall and around the corner. The three Paladins jump down from their perch and swing into the control room before it closes. To their surprise, there’s still one Galra inside, standing at the control panel and staring at them in shock. It moves to swing and aim its gun at them, but quicker than lightning, Pidge’s bayard shoots forth and tangles around it, electricity consuming the Galra until it slumps over on the ground, unconscious. Lance looks at Pidge with an impressed grin.

“Nice one, Pidgey,” he crows, high-fiving her. She shoots him a grin in return and then runs at the control panel, suddenly all business. She sets to furiously typing at it, connecting a few wires from the panel to her gauntlet, and Lance and Keith leave her to do her thing, turning towards the closed door to guard her as she worked. They crouch tensely, bayards at the ready for any sort of attack. The silence grates on Lance’s already frayed nerves, unbearable.

“What did you even do as the distraction?” Lance asks suddenly, unable to handle it any longer.

Pidge calls from behind, “I sent the kitchen into a tizzy. All the tech in there started going haywire, attacking the chefs and anyone else around.” He could hear the grin in her voice, and he remembered the anecdote she and Hunk had told him about the time the castle was haunted by Sendak’s consciousness the first year they’d spent in space.

“Classic,” Keith mutters, but there’s no malice in his tone. In fact, there’s a small smile on his face as he stares at the door in anticipation. Lance’s gaze lingers on that smile, unable to deny how much he likes the way it softens the other boy’s normally hardened face. His heart stutters a beat in his chest, and he berates himself before turning to the door to resume guarding position.

“Pidge,” Shiro’s voice suddenly rings in their coms. “How’s it going in there?”

“I’m about done, Shiro, don’t worry,” Pidge answers smoothly, the sounds of her rapid typing sharpening in confidence. “I’m about to open the cargo ports for you. Are you in position?”

There are a few ticks of silence before Hunk answers. “In position now, Pidge.”

A few more clacks from Pidge. “Cargo ports are now open for approximately ten ticks. Get in now.”

“We’re in,” Shiro says.

“Good. I’ve sent you guys the layout for all the floors, they should be in your gauntlets. Prison cells are on the second floor above the cargo storage. I’ll be opening the cell doors and permanently unlocking all doors on those floors in approximately thirty ticks. Move fast, guys, I’m not sure how long my distraction will last.”

As if in response to her words, the doors to the control room open to reveal five Galra soldiers, looking just as shocked to see them. They reach for their weapons, but Lance and Keith are ready; they’re all dispatched and out of commission within two minutes, Keith hacking some to pieces while Lance covers his back and takes out a few of his own. Pidge joins them, wires stuffed back into her gauntlet, and she drags them down a hallway quickly. Lance is about to ask why when it happens—alarms ring throughout the ship, red lights blinking from the ceiling.

Pidge stops abruptly, pulling up her screen again and taping a few things into it; just as quickly as it started, the alarms and lights stop, surely confusing the entire ship. “So much for a complete stealth mission,” she mutters under her breath. “Shiro, Hunk, how’s it coming?”

“It’s going well so far,” Hunk huffs into the coms. “So far, no interference, and I’ve got my floor almost completely boarded.”

“Same here,” Shiro adds. “I’m making my last trip, and then we’re good to go. What’s your status?”

“We’ve got the info we need, and we’re making our way down to the cargo ports to escape,” Lance answers, ushering his teammates down the hall. That feeling is back in his gut tenfold. Something is going to happen, something _bad_ , and he doesn’t know _what_ , but he needs to keep his team safe.

And then, of course, it happens.

Lance is the first to hear the thundering of approaching footsteps, a whole group of Galra soldiers heading their way from an adjacent hall. Pidge is the one to bring them to a halt. But Keith is the one to spring into action. And what he does is the match set to gasoline in Lance’s composure, his grip on reality snapping and sending him spiraling back into his six-year-old self in a matter of seconds.

Keith grabs the collars of Pidge and Lance’s armor and drags them into the nearest place to hide—which, of fucking course, happens to be a tiny _closet._

Darkness shrouds them as the door closes, and Lance feels his throat constrict as his pulse skyrockets, whole body shaking with pure fear. It’s like someone has charged every nerve ending in his body with electricity, freezing him in place but making him scream inside in pure terror at the feeling of being in a place like this again. A cramped space with almost no room, pitch black, nowhere to go. He gasps in choppy breaths, panic setting his whole body on fire from the inside out.

“No,” he grunts desperately, clawing at his throat, at the walls, at the door. “I can’t—I _can’t—_ “

_A harsh voice whispering for him to shut up._

“Lance?” Pidge whispers in the dark somewhere to his right. His anxiety doubles as he registers that she’s in here with him, that Keith is there too, witnessing him unravel before their eyes at being in a closet.

“I have to get out,” he wheezes, the desperation wrapping around him like a vise, no room for breath or any relief. “I have to— _I can’t—!_ ”

_Hands holding him down, roaming, ignoring his pleas to stop, too strong for him to fight._

“Lance, calm down!” Keith whispers worriedly, hand on Lance’s elbow. But that only makes it worse because now there’s someone _touching_ him and it _burns_ , and he just wants to _get out—_

The thundering of the Galra’s footsteps get louder, the soldiers walking down their hallway now. There’s danger, so much going on that Lance’s head is spinning wildly like a top, and before he can collect himself, his episode hits a head and he’s just a flurry of self-preservation, only focusing on getting out of that damned closet and away from the memories attacking him in his head.

On pure instinct, Lance wrenches out of Keith’s grip and steps back enough to bring his bayard up and shoot at the lock on the closet door. He blasts it and kicks the door open, denting the metal with extreme force thanks to the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He is a wild flurry of motion as he shoots with blind precision at every Galra soldier he sees in that hallway, shooting them down before they can shoot back. Fight-or-flight instinct simultaneously take over, fighting his way out of his episode, the closet, and the Galra all at once in the span of a few minutes. By the time his mind catches up to him, the hall is littered with soldier bodies, holes steaming in the chrome exteriors from his blaster hits. Keith and Pidge stand at his back, having taken down a few for themselves that he couldn’t. The silence that follows is loaded with tension and leaves Lance with his ears ringing as the gravity of what just happened settles in.

 _Fuck_.

“What the hell was that?” Pidge asks incredulously, watching with wide eyes as Lance stands from his kneeled position on the ground, his chest heaving and his eyes losing their wild look. He avoids meeting her eyes and Keith’s, keeping his eyes trained on the floor and looking like a cornered animal. _Stupid, stupid, stupid! They can’t know! They **can’t know**!_

“Guys!” Shiro’s bark into their coms brings them back to the mission at hand. “What’s going on? Is everyone alright?”

“Other than Lance going completely berserk there for a second, we’re fine!” Pidge answers, voice wavering with uncertainty. She looks at Lance with what he thinks might be concern, but he isn’t really sure of anything in his state of mind. He’s still trying to calm himself down, reminding himself of the truths of the present.

_My name is Alejandro Rafael McClain. I’m seventeen. I’m not four years old anymore. I’m not that scared little boy anymore. I’m not weak anymore. I’m strong now. I can take care of myself now. I won’t let this get to me right now. I have a mission to finish right now._

“Let’s go,” he says roughly, all business. _No time for anything else, gotta get this done now._

Keith and Pidge share a concerned glance, but Lance doesn’t spare himself time to think about it. He needs to get his teammates back to the castle ship safely—their safety is the most important thing to him right now, something concrete and real for him to focus on. He can deal with his demons later—he _has_ to. He can’t break down now.

They all run down the halls to the cargo ports, Pidge filling Shiro in on the whole situation quietly as they make their way down to avoid attention. Keith is silent, eyes piercing as they scan their surroundings constantly, and Lance keeps his eyes trained ahead of him, reminding himself to stay focused and in control. _Can’t make the same mistakes again_.

They arrive in the cargo ports and go out the way they came in, luckily not encountering any more disturbances as they propel themselves by their jets to the Green Lion and zoom away to the castle ship. The second they land in their hangers, Allura opens a wormhole and gets them away from the prison, landing them in a friendlier galaxy system to allow everyone to get their bearings.

As much as Lance would love to go to his room and try to sort his head out, he can’t because Allura has them all tending to the prisoners. Lance doesn’t really mind doing so because it offers a relieving distraction, but it doesn’t last as long as he would’ve liked. He’s talking to a particularly elderly prisoner, a frog-like alien with six legs and three eyes, when he notices it: Keith, standing close to Shiro, talking in low whispers and subtly nodding his head to where Lance sits with the prisoner. Shiro frowns, seems to ask a question, and Keith gives a lengthy answer, tense in his short movements and sharp gestures. It’s like a stone was dropped into Lance’s stomach, a sinking feeling in his gut. He knows he won’t have the luxury of sorting out his head tonight. He’ll be hearing _something_ tonight.

He wishes he wasn’t so right. The tightening of his gut amplifies when Allura calls them to the deck for a discussion on the mission. He knows it’s going to be more than the highs and lows of the mission; he knows it’s going to be more about his episode, and he doesn’t know how to defend himself because they don’t _know_ why he hates closets. They don’t _know_ why he flipped out the way he did. They _can’t_ know.

And that’s what makes it so hard.

“Paladins,” Allura says as they gather around her at the control panel of the ship. “I wanted to congratulate you on a successful mission. You should all know that you did very well today, and that so many of these former prisoners will now live better lives thanks to you.” She flashes an elegant smile, but then smooths it over with a business-like expression, and that’s when Lance knows to brace himself. “However, I did hear some rather concerning things about the mission that I feel it is best to address with everyone. Lance.”

Just hearing her say his name has him wanting to turn tail and run. “Yes Princess.” Not a question. He knows what she has to say.

“I heard you acted rather brashly during the mission today. You were cornered by Galra soldiers, more than you likely could’ve handled in a fair fight, and hid away. But then you deliberately put you and your teammates at risk by causing a commotion and recklessly engaging in a fight in which you were clearly outnumbered! Any of you could’ve gotten injured or _killed_ for your thoughtless actions. Care to explain yourself, Lance?”

It is then, with Allura yelling at him and his teammates looking at him with varying reactions that Lance realizes that he is _tired_. His body feels so weighted down—he can feel the tension in his shoulders, whole body taught as a bow. He can feel the fatigue deep in his bones, the restlessness of his nerves, the rawness of his soul. There’s only so much he can take. And after a battle like this one, where he should be celebrating a successful mission—not dealing with his stupid flashbacks, not dealing with the demons that haunt him daily—he just can’t take it. He’s done for the day. He can’t handle any more—he’s reached the limits of his emotional threshold.

So he looks Allura dead in the eyes and says simply, “No.”

She balks instantly, aghast at his response. “ _Excuse me?_ ” she says incredulously. “’No’? What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I don’t have an explanation to give you,” he says through tight lips and distress roiling in his stomach. He knows he’ll get in trouble, but he’s just so _tired_ …

“This is _not_ the behavior of a Paladin,” Allura fumes, and Shiro shifts in his seat at the table on deck to back her up.

“Lance,” he says in a warning tone. “Now is not the time for joking around.”

“I know that,” Lance says impatiently, any trace of smiles or cheer gone from his face. “I’m not joking.”

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Allura demands, getting riled in her seat. “Have you no shame for putting your teammates in danger? Do you care so little for their lives that you have no remorse for your careless actions?”

“Of course not!” Lance shouts, appalled at her line of questioning. Is that what she truly thought of him? That he was some reckless fool who didn’t value the lives of his team? This is dangerous territory now; she is raising her voice, nearly shouting at him, and he’s lying if he says that isn’t affecting him in the worst way possible. If he didn’t want to hide away in his room to break down before, he sure does now.

“Then what is the meaning of this? Why behave so recklessly in the first place? What is wrong with you?”

That was the last straw for Lance. It was fine for her to assume that he was a reckless fighter, but to assume that he didn’t care about his teammates’ lives, or to poke at his biggest insecurities and ask the very question he can’t help asking himself every single _fucking_ day of his life? That was too much. Her yelling, her terrible assumptions—everything comes crashing down around him, a new crack in his mask as he slips out of his composure.

He stands, chair screeching against the floor, and slams his hands down on the table, leaning towards Allura across it. The whole table is stunned to silence, shocked at his actions. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Princess,” he grits out, that wild look back in his eyes again. “I don’t have an explanation for you. You can insult me and paint me as a reckless Paladin who’s only in it for the glory, but _do not_ assume that I don’t care or value the lives of my teammates. They’re my family and I would die for them in a heartbeat. Don’t doubt that, and don’t forget it.”

He turns on his heel and walks away, biting his tongue to avoid saying things he’d later regret. Allura recovers quickly from her shock as he walks away, fury flashing once again.

“Lance!” She shouts at his back in anger. “Don’t you walk away from me! Get back here!”

And suddenly it’s like he’s nine years old again, running for his life away from his abuser who’d chased after him with those same words shouted from their lips. He remembers the reason for the chase, for the words; Lance had finally said no. He’d finally stood up for himself against Arturo. His punishment? Hands and fingernails digging into his waist, and dragging _down_ , piercing skin and leaving trails of dark red to drip from his skin and seep into his t-shirt.

_“Don’t you walk away from me, Lancey-boy!” Arturo shouts as his grip tightens. “Get back here!”_

_“Leave me alone, Arturo!”_ _Lance begs as the hands close around his waist and try to drag him back. But this time Lance gives into the instincts to fight for himself, lets his legs flail and kick at his abuser. It only serves to make Arturo dig his nails in, but Lance isn’t giving up that easily. He strains and fights against that grip, against the burning pain that flares as those nails pierce his_ _flesh until Arturo finally lets go. Lance sobs in pain and fear, continuing to run until he makes it back to his house and into his bathroom without the notice of his parents in the living room. He locks himself in and takes out the first aid kit, using the peroxide to clean his wounds as best as he can and the gauze to wrap and bandage himself. The knock on the door quickens his pulse, the voice on the other side souring his stomach._

_“Lance?”_

_With quivering breaths, Lance leans his head on the bathroom door, voice low for only the demon beyond the door to hear. “Stay away from me, Arturo,” he says. “Never touch me again. Leave me alone.”_

_He waits for what feels like hours before his mother comes to ask what he’s doing in the bathroom, informing him that Arturo left a long time ago and that he needs to come out for dinner now. Those scars, that remain unseen by anyone but him, change him that day. They start a resolve within him; no one gets to hurt him like that against his will. He won’t let anyone hurt him anymore._

Lance can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t anything. He’s frozen in the middle of the control deck for all of five solid seconds before he bolts out of the room like a bat out of hell, completely ignoring the surprised calls of his teammates. He needs to get to his room _now_ , needs to get into the shower with cold water to jolt himself out of this hell and cool the burning in the ten jagged marks marring his mid to lower back. They tingle and burn in the worst way with phantom pain, and it makes his skin crawl and his mind haywire with insanity that he can’t control. He makes it to his room in record time, undressing in a frenzy and throwing himself under the showerhead, gasping at the cold water.

It takes a while, but eventually his thoughts stop racing in his head and he’s able to think clearly and lament over the mistakes he made tonight. He resolves to make himself better, to avoid making the same mistakes again. He can’t lose his cool like that. He can’t let his guard down. He has to be more vigilant about these things. His team doesn’t know. They can’t know. He can’t let their words hurt him—they’re ignorant about his problems, and he prefers it that way despite the complications that come with it. He’d rather they be ignorant to his past that know about it and look at him in ways he can’t stand, prefers their ignorance to the bareness of his soul completely vulnerable to them. If this is what he has to live with, then so be it.

Still, it hurts him. His heart aches with a want to explain himself, a stupid wish to be able to come clean and be regarded with acceptance and reassurance that it doesn’t change the way they look at or think about him. He longs to be honest with them and let them into his sore, guarded heart. But he can’t. They can’t know. The only thing he can do about it is cry under cold water while his mask slowly cracks further and further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we've hit a turning point in the fic. May not seem like one, but trust me, we have. It feels like a half-way point; looks like this fic will be about 8-10+ chapters long, but we'll see!  
> Thank you all so much for the comments and other feedback. There are only so many ways that I can say thank you; I hope it doesn't seem impersonal when I say virtually the same thing in my replies! I truly mean everything with all my heart.  
> Don't forget, you can talk to me about anything and everything on my tumblr: bi-ladin.tumblr.com (please do, I love having people to talk to)
> 
> Once again, thank you all so much, from the bottom of my heart <3


	5. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the mask is finally broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: flashbacks and a panic attack, as per usual.

Lance honestly isn’t expecting to see Allura at his door when he wakes up the next day. He has just finished getting dressed, more than a little miffed at the bags underneath his eyes, when he reaches the door and it slides open, revealing the Altean Princess with her hand poised to knock. Surprise flits across her delicate features, mirroring his own, before she schools her face into a calm expression and lowers her hand, clearing her throat as she glances at the ground.

“Good morning, Lance,” she says quietly, avoiding his eyes.

His stomach tightens with discomfort at the tension between them. This is so unexpected—he can’t imagine why she would be here. No one had come to check up on him after his mad dash out of the control room last night, as far as he was aware. He’d collapsed on his bed with his thoughts chasing each other in his head, falling asleep due to pure exhaustion and waking up feeling like death. He raises his eyebrows at her, conveying his silent question.

“I just wanted to apologize for my outburst last night,” she continues, and this time Lance goes rigid with surprise because okay, _that_ was the last thing he is expecting. An _apology?_ For _him_? “It was… extreme, and very unprofessional of me. I am to keep a level head at all times, and I failed to do that last night when discussing the events with you, and for that I apologize. But I especially apologize for my rather thoughtless words. There is nothing _wrong_ with you, Lance, and I hope that my words did not make you think otherwise, or that _I_ thought otherwise. That is not the case, and I’m sorry if I made you think it so.”

Warmth and cold spreads from his chest throughout his body. He is half-reveling in her words and half-rejecting them. The voices in his head whisper negative things to him, disregarding and poisoning her words.

 _She’s lying to you,_ they say. _Of course there’s something wrong with you— **everything** is wrong with you. You’re all fucked up, there’s no fixing you. You know it, she knows it, and everyone else does too. _

The warring sensations within himself make him feel hollow. Numb. Allura’s awkward shuffling is what brings him back to the present as he realizes she’s been standing there in silence, waiting for a response.

“Oh, uh, thank you, Princess,” he says, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “I appreciate and accept your apology. You’re forgiven, but I deserved it. I don’t have an explanation to give you for my actions, and for that, I’m sorry. I just… I have nothing. But I care a lot about my team—what I said about that is all true. I’m just… going through some stuff right now. I’ll sort it out, you don’t have to worry.”

“Oh,” Allura says, eyes lighting up with understanding. “Have you spoken to anyone about your difficulties? You do know you can talk to me about anything you’re struggling with, correct? I’m always here, and if you don’t feel comfortable talking to me, I’m sure your fellow Paladins—“

“Oh, no no, don’t worry about it,” he rushes to reassure her. “It’s just something I’ve gotta work through on my own.”

She studies him quietly for a moment. “Do you… feel as though you cannot rely on your fellow Paladins with such troubles?”

Lance hesitates, unsure of how to answer that question. It’s not that he can’t rely on his teammates—how can he tell them about his past? It’s not like he could just go up to them and _say_ it. He can barely stomach thinking about it when he’s around them, much less handle even the _thought_ of telling them about it. This is his burden to bear and his alone. The alternative is too gut-wrenching to think about.

But as he hesitates to answer, he sees something flicker in Allura’s eyes at his hesitation, something that makes his senses tingle with wariness. He isn’t sure he likes what that look indicates. So, he lies, in the hopes that he can be convincing enough to dissuade whatever came to her mind.

“No, of course not,” he says, flashing her a smooth grin. “They’re my teammates, of course I can rely on them. One-hundred percent.”

Unfortunately, the look remains, and she nods carefully at his response, gaze piercing and calculating. “Well then. I shall see you in the kitchen for breakfast then.”

Before he can respond, she’s already briskly walking away, leaving him reeling and replaying their whole conversation the whole way to the kitchen to try to catch what he must’ve missed.  He hopes he didn’t give her any strange ideas or misconceptions about the team’s overall relationship. They are close—they have to be, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to form Voltron and kick Galra ass. They haven’t had to form Voltron as of late, thankfully, but now Allura’s question has Lance thinking. Could they form Voltron with the secrets he’s been keeping from them in the way?

Lance has to chastise his line of thinking for that; he’s always had this hidden from the team, and it didn’t stop them from forming Voltron before. But then again, it hasn’t always been this pressing on the forefront of his mind. He shudders, hoping he can get his shit together before that gets put to the test.

He walks into the dining room and greets his teammates with a somewhat distracted smile, still pondering the issue. They return his greeting, and throughout the whole meal they keep their eye on him, unbeknownst to him as he sits and eats half in his head and half in the present.

Luckily for him, they don’t do much that day. Allura sets course for a peaceful planet to home the prisoners, all of which are excited and profess their thanks to all the Paladins as the team go about talking and taking care of them. Lance feels peaceful as he does this, grateful to a task that keeps his mind and hands busy; taking care of people is a second nature to him, having grown up taking care of his younger siblings and cousins as best he could. It applied to things like feeding his younger siblings to help out his tired mother, or changing diapers, but also to warding off his abuser from his other younger family members. He was the only one who knew what Arturo was truly capable of; in his younger mind, as long as he had the monster’s attention, it wouldn’t go after anyone else. So, he made sure the others went on ahead and played their own games, and made sure no one was left alone for too long when the monster was around. To this day, he doesn’t know if it made any difference, but he prays to God that no one else suffered at the hands of that bastard.

“Thank you, Blue Paladin,” a small alien about as tall as his waist says to him. Its skin is a soft green hue, and it’s vaguely humanoid with four legs and four arms, reminiscent of a lobster with its shape and the mandibles it has on its face. The reminder fills Lance with nostalgia and a hint of longing for his home planet and the beautiful beach of his childhood. It is nice to be able to remember some of the _good_ things from his childhood.

“You’re very welcome,” Lance says with a smile, handing the alien a small Altean cup of the water equivalent all the Paladins were currently serving. “Are you looking forward to our arrival on the new planet?”

“I am,” the alien says. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen anything but the darkness of those cells. I never want to be enclosed in darkness ever again.” They shudder, a whole-body movement that Lance can’t help but mirror. He knows the feeling too well.

They spend the remaining two vargas with the ex-prisoners until Coran’s voice rings cheerfully on the comms in the ballroom that they have arrived and can get off the ship. They organize the array of aliens as best as they can, but their excitement is palpable and contagious. Even the Paladins have trouble holding back. Lance can feel their yearning, their excitement, their _relief_ thrumming and rushing through his veins.

The planet is full of pastel colors—soft pinks, blues, and yellows fill Lance’s senses when he follows the aliens off the ship. The sky is full of soft purples and the occasional yellow, and the _sun—_ god, Lance never thought he’d see such an Earthen-looking sun off of Earth like this. Yellow and bright and just as painful to look at as Earth’s sun. Lance can’t help but stand in place, eyes closed, face upwards, just soaking it in. The ground beneath his feet is a soft blue, more sand than dirt, and there are odd flowers blooming here and there, darker colors than the pastels of the terrain.

The natives of the planet are darker colored in contrast to their pastel planet. They stand tall and thin, eyes white without pupils and mouths wide across their faces. They remind Lance of celery sticks, with leafy tufts of what he supposes is hair on the tops of their heads. Several of them are weaving in and out of the ex-prisoners, greeting them and having conversations, already having been briefed beforehand about their arrival and intentions. Allura is already talking to one of them, probably going over their plans.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says at his side. Lance doesn’t need to look back to see who it is; the quickening of his heartbeat is confirmation enough.

“Hey, Mullet,” Lance says, turning to face Keith. He stands with his arms crossed, eyes carefully watching the crowd of ex-prisoners interacting with the planet natives. After a few seconds, however, he slides his eyes to look at Lance, gaze piercing.

“How you holding up?” he asks, confusing Lance. Lance gives him a weird look, raising a brow.

“I’m fine,” he says, subconsciously putting his guard up. He has no idea what Keith is getting at, but the past events of last night and this morning have him understandably on edge. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you were obviously upset and on edge last night,” Keith deadpans, never one to beat around the bush. “How are you feeling?”

 _Why do you care?_ Lance wants to ask, because he can’t fathom for the life of him why Keith would care about how Lance is feeling. Words rise to his throat like bile, words that he desperately wants to release and confide in Keith, words that he’s never said to another living soul. He can feel them clawing up his throat, but he clamps his lips shut, swallowing them down. Keith… Keith can’t know about his past. None of them can. Lance hates that this is his mantra, hates that this is his burden to carry alone, but the alternative terrifies him more than the pain he feels from keeping it all to himself. As he looks into Keith’s violet eyes, he can’t help the intense yearning to open his mouth and spill everything, to break down and just let someone else hold him together for once. He can’t help the hitch in his breath as he realizes that he _could_ do that, that it is entirely possible for him to open his mouth and bear his soul to this boy before him. But like a cold vise, invisible hands coil around his throat and silence him, fear sliding down his spine and reminding him of the irrevocable things that could happen if he does; the change is not something he’s willing to risk.

So, he puts on his mask and gives Keith a reassuring grin, breaking eye contact to close his eyes and face the sun one last time before Allura calls them into the ship to depart. “Thanks for the concern, Mullet,” he drawls, committing the warmth of the foreign sun to memory, “But you don’t need to worry about me.”

~

The peace lasts for about three quintaints before Allura’s odd look suddenly makes sense to Lance.

She’d been giving him many odd looks, seemingly observing his every move and interaction with his fellow Paladins. It unnerved him immensely to be watched like that, but he didn’t give it much thought at the time. Now, as she stands before them at breakfast with the glint back in her eyes as she looks them all over, he wishes he had.

“Paladins,” she says, hands clasped together as she sits for breakfast. “It has come to my attention that there is something lacking in your bond with each other.”

Shiro looks at her, his worried-leader face present in the furrow of his brow. “What do you mean, Princess? I think we’re all getting along just fine.”

And that is the truth; the team has been working together like a well-oiled machine, their dynamic and interaction with each other the smoothest it’s ever been since they first came into space two years ago. Lance and Keith didn’t even argue that much anymore, and Keith has bonded with the other two of the Garrison Trio quite well. To suggest that there was something _lacking_ in their bond with each other is surprising to the Paladins, to say the least.

But Lance recognizes the look in her eyes, and he can’t help the feeling of dread in his gut that comes along with it. He _knows_ this has something to do with their conversation outside his door that one morning. He wishes he’d never said anything. He wishes he’d gotten out of bed earlier. He wishes he wasn’t so fucked up in the first place.

“I have been observing you all these past four quintaints,” Allura presses on, “And I’ve come to the conclusion after my obsevations—along with a few other, ah, events—that you are all in need of more bonding exercises.”

Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Keith groan in unison while Shiro just looks even more confused.

“What kind of bonding exercises?” he asks tentatively, as if he knows the answer and hopes he isn’t correct.

 _Please don’t be what I think it is,_ Lance chants repeatedly in his head.

“Please tell me it’s not the—,” Keith starts, but Allura cuts him off.

“The Mind Meld exercise, yes!” She chirps, clapping her hands excitedly. “You all need to strengthen your bonds with each other. You may all be confident in the strength of your bond, but it doesn’t hurt to put a little more effort into it. We will begin after breakfast, so hurry now!”

Lance has lost his appetite. He isn’t even sure he’s breathing. The mind meld— _why oh why did she have to pick **that** exercise of all the others?!_ He would much rather go through the invisible maze than have to have his consciousness tied to his teammates, his thoughts nearly open for all of them to see. He can’t handle the lack of privacy, the lack of protection against his most vulnerable thoughts. What if they see things they aren’t supposed to? What if he can’t control or protect his thoughts from them? What if he slips up? What if—

 _Stop! You’re stronger than this,_ he hisses at himself in desperation. Absently, he can feel a pair of eyes by his side gazing at him intently as he sits frozen in his seat, spoon in hand but not eating. _You **will** be in control. You are going to be okay. It’s gonna be fine. We’ll just get in there, bond a little, and get it over with. You can control this—you don’t have to let it control you._

He stutters a silent breath into his aching lungs and mechanically moves his hand to spoon goo into his mouth. He eats it without tasting it, struggling to keep his thoughts under control. He’s determined—scared shitless, but still determined not to fuck this up if he can help it. Voices of doubt and despair are close to the surface, but he flits away from those thoughts, trying to focus on what’s in the present—like the holes Keith’s gaze is burning into the side of his head. He meets that gaze head on, flashing the Red Paladin an absent grin, too stressed to put any conviction into it, before turning his gaze back to his bowl of goo until he’s finished it.

Lance is lying if he says the walk to his room to suit up and the walk down to the control room don’t feel like he’s walking to his own death. The dread is all-consuming now, but there’s an eerie feeling of calm brushing over him. He’s numb and he knows it, but there’s no helping him now. The façade of control is paper-thin, fragile as glass; one tap and the composure, the mask, is broken. His heart thuds in his ears as he takes his seat in the circle with his fellow Paladins.

They all sit nonchalantly, giving each other quick jabs and quips as they usually do. Lance absently joins, complaining in true Lance-fashion about Allura making them do this.

“Our bond is _fine_ ,” he says with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

“Apparently not, but it’s probably your fault somehow,” Keith teases, raising a playful brow at Lance.

“Hey!” Lance cries in mock offense. “Rude.”

“Keith,” Shiro admonishes gently, pushing Keith’s shoulder a little.

“I see your point though,” Pidge sighs as she places the head mechanism over her head. The others followed suit, Lance getting an odd flash in his head of a guillotine. _I’m being ridiculous_ , he chastises himself. “This _does_ feel a bit unnecessary. Like, I love you guys, but you don’t need to know _all_ of my deepest, darkest secrets.”

“Don’t worry so much, Pidge,” Hunk says as he settles down as well on Shiro’s other side. “It’s like Vegas, but different. Everything that goes down here is our little secret, between you and me. Well, you and all of us, I guess.”

_It’s our little secret, just between you and me._

It’s like watching a car wreck happen before your eyes, a collision that takes everyone by storm in a violent torrent of horror that takes your breath away, ripping you out of reality and into the stuff of nightmares, terrifying and inescapable.

That’s what it’s like when Lance hears those words.

Suddenly, Lance can’t breathe, and there’s a flood of feelings and memories that blindside him like a truck on the road without warning. His body is frozen stiff, fear coursing through him and twisting his gut, making his breath come in short gasps as memories of wandering hands and harsh words consume him, everything projecting into the mind meld. Hands that shouldn’t have been there, words that came out softly sometimes and sharp other times, a voice that made his stomach roil, that he wouldn’t and couldn’t ever forget—

_“Lance,” Arturo says, a smile on his face that at the time brought Lance joy; a time before that smile came to mean something completely different, before it brought Lance dread. “Lance, buddy, I wanna play our little game. Come on, let’s go.”_

_And then it’s dark, and all Lance can feel are those hands in places they should never have been, and he’s crying silent tears because it doesn’t feel right, he doesn’t like this game at all, he just wants to go home. He used to like when his cousin would come to visit, but now all he wants to do is hide when he comes. He doesn’t want to play this game._

_“Remember, Lance,” Arturo says when the game is finally over. “It’s just our little secret. Just between you and me.”_

And then Lance is gasping, tears streaming down his face, hands in his hair replacing the head device placed there before. He’s sobbing, his body trembling like a leaf, half in the present and the past, barely registering the looks of absolute horror on his teammates’ faces. Hunk is completely pale, Pidge is crying, and Keith and Shiro look horrified and _angry_. But oh, god, Lance can’t handle this. He can’t bear to look at them, can’t handle the fact that all of his shame is out in the open for them to see. He is completely and utterly _vulnerable_ and _bare_ and he can’t stand the utter nakedness. They were never meant to see this. They were never meant to _know._ Delirium hits him; he can’t believe his past has just been revealed in the worst possible way.

_I have to get out—this can’t be real—I can’t—how did this—gotta get out—can’t think straight—stupid, stupid, stupid—wish I was **dead** —need to get **out!**_

“ _No, no, no,”_ he cries, scrambling to his feet. “This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening—!”

He is all flight-instinct now, feet carrying him out of the control room and into the hallway. He has no destination in mind, _nothing_ coherent in mind. He runs blindly through the castle, ignoring the cries of everyone else behind him as he puts his long legs to use and puts distance between him and them. He doesn’t want to see them right now, can’t even _think_ of seeing them after that shit show. Adrenaline runs through his veins, propelling him further as he loses himself in the corridors of the castle to push himself away from the scene of the crime. He is nothing but movement and panic, running through stairways and hallways until he is completely lost and unsure of where he is, until he finds an empty storage room full of boxes and dust to the point of suffocation, but he doesn’t care. He’s too far gone to care.

He collapses on the ground against the wall in a heap of self-loathing and anxiety, the worst emotions crashing against him in waves, unrelenting and holding him under the surface to drown. He curls in on himself, sobs racking his body mercilessly. His world is crumbling, spinning around him despite his stationary place on the ground, and he’s defenseless against the flashbacks attacking his brain. He’s trapped in his mind, unable to determine what is real and what is a memory. He’s stuck helpless in his own personal hell, where the Devil wears a charming grin and shares the same blood that runs through his veins.

These panic attacks, these episodes—they’ve never been so bad before. He doesn’t know how to stop this. He wants to scream, but nothing comes out. He’s lightheaded, breaths coming in choppy gasps, lungs never full of the air he needs. Black spots cloud his vision, but he’s stuck in the past, with hands burning painful trails across his skin, nails raking scars into his body, words harshly whispered into his ears.

He doesn’t know when he passes out, but suddenly he’s waking up from another nightmare, the disgusting feeling of hands on his skin, over his mouth, jerking him awake. There are a few seconds of blissful ignorance where he doesn’t remember what he’s doing in a dusty storage room alone before it all comes crashing down on him all over again. His head hurts from crying so hard and tugging on his hair for so long, and when he looks down at his arms—bare from having discarded his upper armor in a desperate attempt to breathe better—they’re red and scratched up, especially his inner wrists.

_Same blood—in my veins—_

A shudder runs through his whole body at the memory of why those scratches exist.

It’s then that he notices the voices drifting towards him down the hallway. The tears on his face are dried by now, so quite some time has passed, but he feels new tears take their place as he remembers what happened. Shame, hot and heavy and all-consuming, fills him, and he draws his knees to his chest to shrink himself into the wall.

 _Please just go away,_ he pleads. _Please just pass this room. Don’t find me, I don’t want you to find me, just leave me alone._

“Lance!” Shiro’s voice yells, and it’s like a punch in the gut to hear how heavy it is with concern and worry. _For me._

“Lance, buddy, please!” Pidge. Her voice wobbles as if she’s crying, or trying not to cry. The guilt amplifies ten-fold.

“Lance, my boy! Where are you?” Coran. His voice is closer, and panic seizes in Lance’s chest. He presses himself harder against the wall, tucking his chin behind his knees.

“Lance!” Keith’s voice gives his heart the biggest jolt—not just because it’s Keith, but also because his voice is _right outside the door._ His heart thumps quickly in his chest and his breath hitches.

_Please don’t open the door, please don’t open the door—_

The door opens a crack, and Lance almost loses his goddamned mind; why can’t _anything_ just go right for once?

Keith and Lance make eye contact for a long second, Lance frozen with fear, Keith frozen in surprise. A flurry of emotions pass through what little of his face Lance can see before the door is abruptly closed shut with a loud slam and all shouts of Lance’s name come to a halt. There’s nothing but silence, in which all Lance can hear is his heart and blood pounding in his ear. And then—

Five pairs of footsteps pounding closer towards his location, coming to a stop right outside his door.

_Fuck._

“Lance?” Shiro calls tentatively.

Breath hitching, lips and whole body trembling, Lance shouts, “Go away! Leave me alone!”

“Lance, please, we just want to know you’re alright,” Pidge pleads, and _shit_ , she’s definitely crying, he can tell.

“I said, _leave me alone!_ ”

Silence.

Then: “I’m sorry, Lance, but we just can’t do that.”

And then suddenly the door is wrenched open with a fierce-looking Shiro on the other side, the rest of Team Voltron behind him all looking worried sick. Pidge and Hunk are in shambles, tears staining their faces; Keith looks anxious and uncertain, hovering closely over Shiro’s shoulder; Coran looks ready to break into tears himself, and Allura looks _guilty_ and just as worried as the rest of them.

Their eyes feel so heavy as they take in his wrecked appearance—his bare top-half, his tousled hair, his tear stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. He wants nothing more than to crawl into a ditch and hide forever, but he doesn’t have that luxury as they stare at him with distraught, helpless gazes, unable to speak.

He grapples for something—a joke, a stupid comment, or even a fucking one-liner to spit out to ease the tension and take the attention off of him, but he has _nothing._ He’s so far out of his element, speechless and unable to find anything. _Nothing, nothing, nothing, he has nothing._ Nothing to say, no way to hide. His mask—his _mask._

_His mask is fucking broken._

There’s no hiding behind it anymore. Everything he wanted to hide is laid bare—in the mind meld, and now here in his eyes as he meets their gazes with his wild one, fight-or-flight thrumming under his skin. _Need to get out, need to get out **now** —_

Somehow Shiro seems to know his line of thought; he softens his fierce, protective gaze into one of understanding and concern, raising his hands peacefully and crouching down to the ground to slowly crawl his way over to Lance like a person approaching a cornered animal. Lance, still scrambling with his thoughts and instincts, allows this, barely noticing him and the others doing this until they’re within five feet of him. At that distance it almost feels like they’re pressing in on his space, breathing his air and suffocating him. His realization still leaves him reeling, staring brokenly at his team as they gaze steadily back at him with nothing but concern.

No pity. No disgust. Nothing to suggest they think he’s weak or broken.

But his mind is so fogged that it doesn’t let him register this. He still feels the shame covering him like a thick wool blanket, his own skin feeling too tight and itchy around him.

“Lance,” Pidge’s voice, although soft, shatters the silence. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

His breath hitches, becoming even choppier than before, and the lump in his throat makes it hard for him to talk. Tears blur his vision and stream down his cheeks, but he barely notices.

“What the fuck was I supposed to say?” he says brokenly. “’Hey guys, it’s an honor to be saving the universe with you! By the way, I was molested by my older cousin when I was little for about five years!’?”

The admission is ugly on his tongue, poison in his mouth, stale in the air. His whole team flinches at his blunt words, and Pidge’s shoulders jolt with a contained sob. He isn’t trying to cause them any pain, but he’s so full of pain himself it’s like he’s leaking it.

“Why would I ever want to bring this shit up? I didn’t want to _remember_ it— _I didn’t want to bring it back!_ But it came back anyway. I tried so hard, so _fucking_ hard to keep it to myself. This is _my_ shame, _my_ burden to bear! And for the two years we’ve been up in space, it _worked!_ I didn’t want you guys to think that I was weak—I didn’t want you guys to look at me with pity, or disgust, or think that I’m broken or disgusting—,”

“Oh, Lance,” Shiro says, his expression so devastated that Lance knows there’s something much bigger going on behind that face, but he can’t fathom what. That tone, that expression, silences him, the lump in his throat finally too much to overcome. There’s so much _understanding_ in those eyes…

He’s so taken aback that he doesn’t even react when Shiro scoots right up to him and takes Lance into his lap, holding him tightly despite Lance’s weak shoves of protest. Lance is stiff in surprise, but the urge to give in and just be _held_ and _let go_ is so overwhelming…

“It’s okay, Lance,” Shiro whispers, tightening his hug ever so slightly. “We don’t think any of that about you—we _love_ you, Lance. We’re a family, and we’re here for you. It’s okay. You’re okay. We’ve got you. We’re here now. We’ve got you…”

It’s like a dam finally breaking under the pressure; Lance lets it all go with a shuddering breath, clutching onto Shiro—who tightens his grip—and crying into Shiro’s shoulder, letting himself be rocked gently back and forth and comforted by the arms of his leader. Only a few seconds pass before there’s some shuffling and then more arms wrap around both him and Shiro, the arms of his _family_. He can hear Pidge sobbing, and Hunk too, and someone grabs one of his hands on Shiro’s back in a tight grip.

They sit there in a protective cocoon around Lance, letting him cry. They don’t hate him, or think he’s weak or disgusting. They only worry for him, hearts aching for his pain and the thought that he has gone through this alone before they knew.

Lance feels all the pain, raw and sore in his soul, but for the first time ever, he aches… and is soothed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a hell of a chapter to write. Sorry it took so long! Life kinda got real busy there, especially because YA GIRL GRADUATED, AYE. I spent a lot of time on homework and celebration, so that took up a lot of writing time. I was also a little hesitant bc this was such a heavy chapter. Brought a lot of things up, you know? I may be better at handling my shit, but I know my limits. I took my time writing this out, so I hope you all think it's okay.  
> Your feedback means the world to me! All your comments and bookmarks and kudos lift my spirits, so thank you all so much!  
> Here's your chapter-ly reminder to come say hi: bi-ladin.tumblr.com  
> And with that said, I'm signing off. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart <3


	6. Honest Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which time passes, reflections are had, words and honesty are exchanged, and realizations are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter, ayyyye! Just a lot of honest words, barely the tip of the ice berg for what Lance (ahem, me) feel about his past and his abuser. Nothing major. Sorry this took so long! A lot of things were happening IRL and I just didn't have the time to write! Hopefully you enjoy what I have for you here <3

There was a time when Lance couldn’t bear the thought of revealing his past to any other living soul, much less imagine what would happen or how he would get past it if he did. As far as he was concerned, it was a secret that would die with him and never see the light of day.

But that was not how things turned out.

It’s strange how such a life-changing event can happen and the world and time will still pass on regardless. Life waits for no one, and Lance is no exception. Hours become days, and days become weeks, and weeks eventually turn into months; life continues for Lance and Team Voltron, and Lance is surprised to find that it goes by simultaneously better and worse than before.

Two months pass, and Lance finds himself woken in the early hours of the space-morning by a nightmare. Revealing his past to his team took a huge weight off his shoulders, but it didn’t automatically fix him or the damage his past had left behind. He still has nightmares. He still wakes up and has panic attacks. He still has days where he doesn’t want any physical contact and keeps to himself. The only difference is that now his team knows _why_ —and that helps a lot more than he would have thought.

Sitting up from his bed, he drags his comforter and wraps it around his shoulders like a cape, hugging it close to him for warmth as he grabs his crystal off his side table and leaves his room quietly to roam the halls until he gets tired enough to fall back asleep. This is his routine for such nightmares; the ones that replay in his mind, behind his closed eyelids, relentless until he finds something else to take his mind off it. He roams the halls silently, usually ending up in the observation deck staring out into space for hours on end until he can no longer keep his eyes open and retreats to fall asleep in his bed.

His bare feet patter softly on the ground as he slowly makes his way to the observatory deck, trying desperately not to think of his nightmare. _Something else, something other than that…_

He thinks back to the day his past was revealed to his team. Their horror at such events having taken place in his life, having happened to _him_ —in some ways it was reassuring, their anger, because he knows now more than ever that they care about him and hate that something so horrendous happened to him. But on the other hand, he didn’t really know how to handle it. Other people knowing about that—it was such a _new_ concept, completely unexplored and uncharted territory. It’s still unfathomable to him that this is how things turned out.

He remembers the conversations they had in that little storage room, all gathered around him like a protective cocoon, their attention and concern solely on him and his well-being.

~

“Lance,” Shiro says, leaning away from Lance to look him in the eye, “I’m sorry— _so sorry_ that this happened to you. I know that my saying so doesn’t change the fact that it happened, that nothing I say could ever erase that from your life, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart. You didn’t deserve it, and you did _nothing_ to deserve it.”

Lance says nothing, sniffling and staring at Shiro as the turmoil of emotions roils within him. _Where is this coming from?_

“You’ve had a long journey since then. You’ve never told anyone about this, have you?”

At this, Lance mutely shakes his head, and his teammates simultaneously deflate and stiffen around him.

“That must’ve been really lonely, Lance.” For a split second, Lance swears he sees Shiro’s eyes glinting with unshed tears, but he blinks before Lance can confirm. “But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore, okay buddy? You have us now. You can be as honest as you need to be with us. In fact, _please_ be honest. Let us help you. We’re a team, your family; I think I speak for all of us when I say the last thing we want to do is hurt you.”

Numbly, Lance registers that his teammates nod frantically, sporting worried looks on their faces. _What is happening?_ He can’t help thinking. _Is this real life? Is this not a dream?_

~

In the present, Lance arrives in the observation deck, claiming his usual spot in the center of the room for the best star-gazing view. He stares out the wall-encompassing window unseeingly, his mind wandering back to the conversation in the storage room.

~

“Can you tell us what makes you uncomfortable, Lance?” Shiro asks gently.

“What do you mean?” Lance sniffs, but he’s afraid that he knows exactly what Shiro is asking for. He isn’t sure he will be able to give him that information. That’s just delving farther into the recesses of his mind and digging up memories he doesn’t need to remember when surrounded by his team like this.

“Are there certain things that bring things back?” Shiro meets Lance’s gaze, and Lance gets the feeling he knows exactly what Lance is thinking. “Anything you feel comfortable sharing?”

Lance bites his lip uncertainly. He feels like he’s standing on the edge of a narrow ledge, dangerously close to teetering off into an abyss of nothingness. It’s a feeling he’s felt too often in his life because of his past. Before the sensation can get any worse, he feels a reassuring pressure on his shoulder; Hunk, looking at him with sorrowful, concerned eyes, a hand on Lance’s shoulder for support.

“We don’t wanna hurt you anymore, buddy,” he says tearfully. “There’s nothing you can say about this that’ll make us love you any less. You can be honest with us; it’s okay.”

The open concern, the affectionate worry in his tone—it’s Lance’s undoing. He clutches at Hunk’s hand with his free hand and avoids eye contact, staring at the fabric of Shiro’s shirt with wide eyes as he speaks.

“Well,” he croaks. “I have a few really bad triggers…” He falls silent for a few seconds, his family waiting for him patiently to continue.

And he does. He tells them about his triggers; the way he can’t stand being restrained or rendered immobile, and his hatred for closets and closed spaces, and his immense fear of the dark. He tells them that he can’t handle people touching his lower stomach, or skimming his sides, and how sometimes he can’t handle being touched at all, and how he can’t take being yelled at and told what to do. He tells them lastly about the biggest trigger he has: the phrases.

_“It’s just our little secret. Just between you and me.”_

To say his team looks horrified is putting it lightly. Pidge and Hunk start crying again, and the anguish on Coran and Allura’s faces is unbearable. Shiro is guilty and angry, but Lance knows it isn’t directed at him. Behind Shiro, Keith looks like he doesn’t know what to feel. His grip on Lance’s hand tightens, and his face goes through a flurry of emotions; recognition, anger, guilt, regret. _Sorrow._ He catches Lance’s eye and holds his gaze for a few seconds before leaning forward to press his forehead to their joined hands mutely, seemingly unable to speak.

Lance knows they’re all thinking of separate instances. “It wasn’t your guys’ fault,” he whispers loud enough for them all to hear. “You didn’t know.”

“God, Lance,” Pidge sniffles, “That’s almost worse.”

And then Hunk’s head snaps up, and there’s a fierce determination blazing in his eyes as he looks at Lance and moves his hand from Lance’s shoulder to Lance’s cheek.

“Things are gonna change, okay, buddy?” He says firmly. “It’s not gonna be like that anymore. We didn’t know then; but now we _do_. Now we _know_ , and we’re gonna be careful and you aren’t gonna have to go through this alone anymore. We’re your family and we love you and we’re here for you now.”

And damn if that wasn’t something Lance had been waiting without knowing he was waiting for years to hear. He bursts into tears and they all press closer to him to comfort him as he sobs into Shiro’s shoulder again.

~

There’s a knot in Lance’s chest as he stares out into space, mutely scanning the stars listlessly. Life had moved on like normal after that. Well, no; not like ‘normal.’ They developed a new kind of normal, one where the Paladins took better notice of Lance and his moods and behaviors, where they learned to see the signs of a rough night/morning, where they learned when he had his touch-no-touch days. A new normal where they took better care with their words and their actions and gave Lance a choice for everything.

There were a lot of things that they did for Lance that he would look back on and realize he’d never made it clear or explicitly told them about, some of them being his trouble with blindly following authority, and his aversion to not having a choice for certain things. He’d never had a choice during the years of abuse, his “No-s” were always ignored, and he’d always been told and ordered what to do with consequences following disobedience. Lance had no idea how they knew to give him such treatment until one night, following a nightmare he couldn’t get out of his head, he’d wandered the halls and passed by the control deck, halting outside the doors as he heard the voices of his team discussing something inside.

“It’s very important that we let him know he has a _choice_ here,” Shiro’s voice rang through the slight gap in the door. “His agreements and disagreements are valid and must be taken seriously. The odds that his abuser did the complete opposite are very high, and I’ll be damned if he feels anything like he felt with that _bastard_ with _us_.”

Lance’s eyes had widened, and he’d taken hasty steps away from the doors. It was bizarre the lengths they were going for him—for _him_. They were having dead-of-night discussions to talk about the ways they could make _him_ more comfortable, ways they could make things easier for _his_ sake. This was honestly the last thing he would’ve expected out of coming clean, had he ever allowed himself to entertain the idea.

His love for his team, which had already been great, only continues to grow with each passing day that Hunk notices the bags under his eyes and the exhausted slump of his shoulders and asks—fucking _asks_ —if Lance wants a hug, each passing day that Pidge will just sit with him in silence when it’s one of those days he doesn’t want to be touched, or will let Lance lay his head in her lap while she cards her fingers gently through his hair. Coran, Shiro, and Keith are adamant about keeping Lance honest, always asking if he’s okay, or if he needs something. Shiro and Coran always offer their shoulders to him if he feels the need to talk and get things off his chest, and although Lance can’t bring himself to take them up on the offers, he appreciates them immensely all the same.

But Keith—Keith is a master of distractions. Keith has proven himself to be extremely observant. It is usually him that warns the others of when Lance is having an off-day and just needs to be by himself, or when he needs the comfort of others. But distractions are his specialty—the times that Lance can’t quite keep it together during training, or during down time when they’re together on deck, Keith is always there, a presence that diffuses the pent-up panic welling up inside of him, or a presence that takes the attention off of Lance and allows him to make his quiet escape. He always seems to know where Lance goes off to as well; when Lance calms down from his panic attacks, Keith is always there afterwards with a water pouch and a small, “You okay?” And if he sees that Lance needs a hug, he encircles his arms around the taller boy’s shoulders and holds him until Lance lets go. He is the breath of air Lance didn’t know he needed.

Out of the corner of his eye, a faint light flickers in Lance’s peripheral vision, a rosy glow. He doesn’t need to turn to know who it is; he recognizes the color from the first time he saw it, held in Keith’s hand when the castle had experienced the blackout. It comes closer and closer until Lance can hear soft footsteps accompanying the soft sway of the light, until it’s mixing with the soft blue of the crystal in his hands, until he can feel the heat of the other boy standing next to him.

“Need some company?” Keith asks softly. Lance turns to look at him; he’s dressed in black night pants and a red night shirt from the castle’s clothes reserve, looking just as listless as Lance feels. Lance shrugs, but pats the floor beside him for Keith to sit. Keith lowers himself slowly, crossing his legs and holding his crystal in his palms like Lance to dull its brightness.

They’re silent for a few moments, just taking in the view of the stars outside. Lance secretly revels in the heat of Keith’s shoulder pressing against his own. If he closes his eyes, he can just… forget that they’re not defenders of the universe, light years away from their home planet, constantly at risk for their lives as two of seven people fighting a whole army of enemies. He can forget that he’s a boy with immense issues and scars, forget that he’s on a castle ship in space, forget the ideals that he’s been raised with in his Catholic household and just… be. He can just be himself, a boy from Cuba, beside Keith, a boy from… well, wherever Keith is from. _I’ll have to ask him later_ , Lance thinks dazedly.

He feels Keith sigh beside him and opens his eyes, anticipating conversation.

“Can’t sleep?” Keith asks, turning his head to look at Lance.

Lance keeps his gaze on the stars out the window, pursing his lips as he debates the question. Shall he go with honesty or a lie? He opts for honesty. “Something like that,” he hedges, not entirely sure he wants to get into it. “You?”

Keith nods, looking straight ahead at the window again. “Just restless, I guess.” More silence, but it isn’t uncomfortable. Keith’s presence beside him does wonders for Lance’s mind—and weird things to his heart, but he can think about that _later_.

“Was it a nightmare?”

Lance starts at the question. No one has ever asked about his nightmares before. Sure, Coran and Shiro and the others have offered their ears to him if he needs to talk, but they’ve never directly asked about them or even breached the subject in the two months that they’ve known. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, Lance shifts his position, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his chin on his knees, wrapping his blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he says, throwing the idea of putting on a mask with just him and Keith alone. It’s hardly worth it to hide behind his mask anymore now that everyone knows. It’s useless, broken. _Just like me…_

Shutting down that destructive train of thought, he turns his attention to the glow of his crystal between his fingers, rubbing the smooth side of it to quell the bout of anxiety tensing up his muscles. Keith’s eyes are on him, but he doesn’t think he can handle meeting those violet eyes when he’s thinking about the nightmare again, doesn’t know what he’ll do or say with his emotions all over the place. Luckily, Keith speaks again.

“You know…” he starts, but he seems to have trouble finding the words; Lance finds that strangely endearing and heartwarming that the raven-haired boy is trying so hard for _him_. “You know you can talk to me about it, right? I’m always here if you want to listen. I know Shiro and the others have offered too, but… Just know that, okay? You can tell me anything you want. But you don’t _have_ to if you don’t want to. That’s okay too.”

Lance takes each word to heart, simultaneously melting and freezing at the same time. He melts with affection for this boy, and freezes with fear at the thought of following through with those words. He could open up. He could talk to Keith about his nightmares and his flashbacks, all the things that haunt him in the middle of the night and don’t allow him peaceful rest. The instinct to clam up and escape are strong, seizing in his chest, but he forces himself to remember who he’s talking to, who he’s beside. _You’re safe,_ he tells himself. _This is Keith, your friend, your teammate. You can trust him. He won’t hurt you. He’s here for you. You can trust him._

_You can tell him._

He’s been silent for a long time, a few minutes, contemplating Keith’s words. Keith sits beside him contentedly, glancing at him every now and then when he’s not looking out the window. He doesn’t expect an answer to his words; he’s okay without one. He knows Lance got the message he was trying to get across. Lance is grateful for their equal understanding of one another in this regard. The need to talk, to open up to him, builds in his chest until he can’t stand it any longer. He stays quiet at first, but then softly speaks with brutal honestly.

“He’s always too close,” Lance whispers lowly. Keith turns to look at him in surprise, but his focus is solely on Lance, taking in every word with rapt attention. The words feel like bile in Lance’s throat, but he _needs_ to say them, needs to get them out. “His breath is on my face, and I feel so small, so powerless. I can still feel him—his hands—,”

He shudders, pressing his face into his knees as a few tears spill. With a sniffle, he raises his head, determined to talk it through. “It’s always dark, and secluded. I don’t like being alone for too long cuz of that. If I’m alone for too long, I start to remember. But—it’s always dark. H-he liked dark closets.” Lance swallows hard, staring at the crystal before his socked feet. “I hate the dark. I hate closets. I hate being alone. I—I hate _him_. I hate him so much for making me this way. I hate myself for not saying anything sooner. I hate that I’m this way. I hate that I can’t help it. I hate that it isn’t my fault but I still _feel_ like it is. I hate that even out here in space, he’s still haunting me. I hate feeling like this. I-I just—,”

He breaks into tears, his emotions overwhelming him like waves crashing down all at once. Keith reacts as if on instinct—he bundles Lance into his arms and shushes him, murmuring reassurances that what Lance feels is valid, that it’s alright, that they’re all there for him, that _he’s_ there for Lance. Lance doesn’t realize how much he needed to be held until Keith’s arms are wrapped around him without any intention of letting go. Rather than feeling trapped or burned by the contact, he feels strengthened; this isn’t a no-touch moment, but an I-really-need-support moment, and he is so glad Keith found him here in the observatory deck.

“You’re not broken or damaged, Lance,” Keith whispers into Lance’s hair as he sobs. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You are not what you’ve been through. You are what you make yourself out to be. You’re brave, and flirty, and beautiful, and selfless, and loyal and trustworthy—you’re amazing. Your past does not define you. You’re not worthless. You’re completely worthy of love and acceptance, and that’s what you have here from us. We love you, and we want you to be okay. Okay?”

Lance leans back to look at Keith, his face illuminated on one side by the rosy glow of his crystal between them, so fierce and beautiful and honest. There’s a protective fire in his violet eyes that sends Lance’s heart into overdrive and makes his breath hitch in his throat as a realization hits him in that second: _Holy shit, I think I have a crush on Keith._ It’s enough to take his breath away.

“ _Thank you,_ ” Lance says vehemently, and he throws himself into Keith’s arms again. The other boy tightens his arms around him, rubbing circles into Lance’s back as more sobs escape him. He holds Lance without complaint until the sobs peter out into nothing but small sniffles; he doesn’t let go, and Lance doesn’t move away. Neither of them want to. Exhaustion settles deep into their bones, and in a silent unconscious decision, they eventually lower themselves to the ground without realizing, Lance’s blanket covering them haphazardly. They fall asleep curled in each other’s arms, Lance’s slumber peaceful and dreamless.

-

“Where are Keith and Lance?” Allura asks Shiro as he enters the kitchen the next morning. He scans the room quickly with a frown, noting that everyone but the two boys were present and accounted for.

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen them,” Shiro answers, a bit of worry in his tone. It was highly out of the norm that Keith and Lance weren’t among the first to be here, what with Lance’s early routine and Keith’s tendency to pull all-nighters in the training room (despite Shiro’s nagging for him to _not_ do that, thank you). “I’ll go look for them,” he says, stepping back to exit the kitchen.

“I’ll go with you,” Hunk says, ever worried for his best friend and other teammate. They walk together in relative silence, throwing suggestions back and forth as they look for their friends. Their rooms are both empty, plus the showers and the training room. _Where could they be?_

“It’s so weird that they weren’t there already,” Hunk murmurs as they leave the control deck. “Where haven’t we looked?”

“There’s still the observation deck,” Shiro says, and they walk in that direction. They are entirely surprised to find both boys tangled up together on the ground with Lance’s comforter covering their legs. They’re both sound asleep, not waking until Shiro and Hunk are standing over them, sharing a look.

“Hey guys,” Shiro says softly as they blink blearily up at him. If he notices that they don’t move away from each other immediately, he doesn’t show it.  

“Hey Shiro,” Lance mumbles, scratching his head. _What the hell?_ Lance thinks. He and Keith sit up, Keith yawning and stretching beside him. “What’s going on?”

“We didn’t see you at breakfast and didn’t find you in your rooms, so we came looking for you,” Hunk explains, crouching down to sit beside Lance briefly. “What are you two doing here?”

Suddenly Lance’s face falls, his gut twisting as he remembers the whole reason he’d even left his room in the first place, and Keith places an encouraging hand on his shoulder. Lance unconsciously leans into the touch, and looks at Hunk with a vulnerable expression unable—and too tired—to school it into something neutral. “I, uh, had a nightmare,” he says, casting his eyes to the floor before flicking them back up at Hunk.

Hunk’s face softens, and he wraps an arm around Lance’s shoulder comfortingly. “Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry, buddy. You can always come into my room if you want after a nightmare, okay?”

“And I’m always awake to talk if you need to,” Shiro offers, face just as soft as Hunk’s. He’s offered it before, and although Lance has yet to take him up on the offer, it doesn’t stop him from letting Lance know he’s there for him. Lance can’t help the rush of affection that flutters up at their reassurance and care for him.

Lance takes a shuddering breath, giving them a shaky smile. “Thanks guys.”

“Well, come on then,” Hunk says, standing up and reaching down a hand to help Lance up. “Let’s go get some breakfast!”

They stand, and Lance turns back to help Keith up, impulsively giving his hand a squeeze before letting it go. Keith catches his eye and gives a small smile that Lance returns. He feels those butterflies and some anxiety in his stomach as he remembers with fresh clarity the realization he came to last night. _Holy shit,_ he thinks as they all walk down the hall towards the kitchen.

_I have a crush on Keith Kogane._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty. Now we have come to the sexuality arc. I'm excited for this, it's good stuff coming up! Hopefully it won't take as long, but it seems my summer is only getting busier, ugh. It won't stop me from trying to write, though, so no worries. In the meantime, y'all can come chat with me on tumblr on either "fringeiplier" or "bi-ladin." I'm always down to talk about anything and everything, so don't be shy! 
> 
> And I'll be making a better effort to get to all of your comments and reply, I truly appreciate all your kind words and support. It means the world to me <3 From the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much!


	7. More Than The Pain You've Endured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance has some deep reflections about his past and sexuality and takes Shiro up on his offer to talk. 
> 
> _The tears leak faster on Lance’s face, but a small bit of relief courses through his system. “But-But what if—I’m—What if it’s because of what he did to me?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so here we have some Big Brother/Space Dad Shiro looking out for Sunshine Boy Lance. I hope you enjoy, let me know if you did! <3

Ever since Lance was little, even before the abuse started, he knew there was something different about him. He’d always been the chatty, overly affectionate kid who interacted with all kids his age and older. He wasn’t shy about holding hands or kissing cheeks or playing with any of the other kids around him, unless it was made clear to him that they weren’t comfortable, of course. He’d been like that all throughout his childhood with classmates and neighbors—until his father started commenting on it.

Don’t get him wrong—Lance loves his father just as much as he loves his mother and other family members. The love he has for his family was something ingrained in his very being, a value held high to the McClains. But his father… had an interesting way of showing that love. He was a stern man, hardened by the hardships life had dealt him before and after his children were born, many religious and old values and ideals engraved in his own personality that he had no issues sharing with his family and the world. He was an old-fashioned man, not one who really liked the changes and progressions society was slowly making towards tolerance of all ways of life—and he had no qualms making it clear to all of his kids in the house.

It was the jokes not directed at him that Lance noticed first. Crude jokes, ones that even at his young age of six he could understand were not in positive or appreciative context. He remembers one incident in particular, where there was a particularly flamboyant and energetic host on some show on the TV that his father was watching and his father had cracked a joke with one of his uncles visiting the house that day. He remembers his father’s tone of voice, sounding a lot like the mean kids who would sometimes taunt Lance at school, and his father’s rambunctious laughter echoed by his uncle’s, both shaking their heads as his father pointedly changed the channel with a noise of disgust. He remembers that word, the _p_ word his father had spit in Spanish, one that he would later come to know was a gay slur; a word that would later make him sad and scared at the same time.

He came to many realizations as he grew older—both about himself, and his father. It was unconscious at first, those he figured out about himself, because for the longest time he didn’t even know the specifics between being heterosexual or _anything_ else. That is, until his father started commenting on his behaviors and mannerisms. He made many pointed comments about how much he liked hanging out with his guy friends, about how Lance often held their hands when pulling them along, or pressed kisses to their cheeks when Lance was much smaller. Lance often felt his father watching him as he played with his friends, and at the time only waved and smiled when he met his father’s gaze. He didn’t know any better. He was just a kid.

It wasn’t until he asked his father about it that he truly came to know his father’s view on it all.

“Papa,” eight-year-old Lance asked as his father was taking out the trash from the kitchen. “Why can’t boys be with other boys?”

He’d only asked because his father had made a comment about something in the news involving gay marriage, and his reaction had been very vocal—and very negative.

“Because, _hijo_ ,” his father answered, bending down to his level with a stern look on his face. “ _Dios no ordenó que fuera así_.” _God did not command it to be that way._ “We must follow God’s way. And boys being with boys is not God’s way.”

And Lance, having grown up in a heavily religious environment, spent a lot of time around these ideals. The negativity and close-mindedness of that viewpoint clashed with the values he’d gathered and believed in on his own, but it still held weight over him and his own actions. He was suddenly more conscious of how he acted around his father and his friends, thought twice about holding another boy’s hand or hugging a boy for too long when he felt his father’s eyes on him lingering.

When Lance was just eleven, after a friend went home after spending the day at Lance’s house, his father voiced the suspicions behind his brown eyes, throwing passive aggressive comments about how “friendly” Lance was with all his guy friends, and how there surely must’ve been some girl he was interested in at school.

“What’s her name, _mijo_?” His father asked, a little too much force behind the words and in his grip on Lance’s shoulder. It was one of the first times he felt a genuine fear with his dad looking at him like that—scrutinizing and looking for any hint of something _‘not quite right_.’ “No one can resist the McClain men for long—I know there’s gotta be some girl out there.”

It was then that Lance came to an understanding about himself and his father. It was an unconscious understanding that if these feelings and inclinations and desires that he had for girls _and_ boys were ever to come to light in this household, to his father’s eyes, he would not be accepted. His father made it very clear—there was no room in his house for anyone who wasn’t anything but straight. Lance couldn’t bear the feeling of his father’s eyes following his every move, scrutinizing every interaction he had with _anyone_ he came into contact with outside of his family. He did what he had to do to get his dad off his back: he became the biggest flirt he could possibly be, throwing all his affections and inclinations toward every girl he came across.

And to Lance’s relief and sorrow, it worked. He was praised, held high in his father’s eyes. All Lance wanted was to be accepted, make his father proud—so why did it feel so wrong to get it this way?

Lance discovered why the year that he disappeared with the rest of Team Voltron into space.

There was a boy at the Garrison that Lance had been trying to deny to himself that he thought was cute. A nice boy, sweet and unassuming in an endearing way; he and Lance had talked a few times, and there was a bit of chemistry between them. He was the only boy Lance had been relatively shy around, which was what caught his attention in the first place. His father’s words haunted him the whole time Lance wrestled with his feelings, telling him that the way he felt for this boy was _wrong_ , it wasn’t _God’s way_ , he couldn’t like boys this way.

 _I don’t have any feelings like that for him,_ Lance tried to convince himself adamantly, his father’s approval hanging over his head. _We’re just friends. I’m straight. Nothing else. I can’t be anything else._

And yet, when the Garrison was holding an event for the students to relax—one of the only times they were allowed to stay up past curfew—he found himself in a secluded spot in the hallway with that boy, faces less than an inch apart, yearning wholeheartedly to close the space between them. Their lips met, the contact lasting less than thirty seconds, but their hands wound up tangled in each other’s hair to tug the other closer, thoughts racing and escaping them before they caught up and broke apart simultaneously with bewildered and guilty looks, breaths panting on each other’s faces.

They were both in the same boat—closeted and in denial. Lance was the first to break the silence, shooting the boy a shaky grin and stepping back for space to clear his head. His stomach was roiling with guilt… and yearning to close the space again. But his father’s voice seemed to personify itself like a phantom, filling him with a stiffness and a fear the held him back from acting on those feelings and desires again.

“Sorry about that,” Lance said, running a hand through his hair as he leaned against the wall.

“No problem,” the boy said in return, looking anywhere but Lance. “Can we, um… Can we just forget that happened?”

Lance schooled his expression into one of nonchalance, lazy half-smile covering the unexpected pain he felt at those words. “Yeah, sure. I can do that.”

It was hard for him to forget, but when you get abruptly thrown into a world where you are one of five defenders of the whole freaking universe, you tend to stop replaying such a thing in your mind. You tend to stop thinking about what it means about you and how it changed you. You tend to stop thinking about how much you liked it and wanted it to happen again.

You also tend to stop thinking about the cause.

But now that his peaceful ignorance has been interrupted by a certain black-haired, hot-headed pilot, it’s unfortunately all Lance can think about in his down time.

Lance would love to say that the realization of his feelings for Keith took a huge weight off his shoulders, but it really didn’t. If anything, it haunts him whenever he lets his mind stray. It brings back a lot of the old concerns he’d had in his younger years; the memory of his father, sure, but also the bigger fear of the hand his abuse history had in his sexuality.

He’s long since lost count of the nights he’s lost sleep agonizing over this. His thoughts on the whole thing are always jumbled and half-coherent, the panic of it all scrambling his focus. Did he only like boys because of what happened with Arturo? Did that have anything to do with it? He can’t help feeling disgusted with himself for those thoughts, for his feelings for boys. He used to lie in bed at night and reassure himself that he liked girls too, that all he had to do to make his dad proud and be okay with God was to marry a girl. But that line of thinking, even now, left and leaves an ache in his heart.

After that incident at the Garrison with the boy and now with his crush on Keith, there is no denying his attraction to boys.

“My name is Alejandro Rafael McClain,” Lance whispers to himself alone in his room, crystal held between his hands. “I am nineteen years old. I like girls. And…” He swallows, hands shaking now. “And I like boys too.”

It’s the first time he’s ever admitted it to himself, and out loud at that. Overcome with emotion at the admission, he wipes his tear-stained cheeks and hurries into his personal bathroom, flicking the lights on and meeting his reflection head-on. “I like boys,” he tells his reflection. “I like boys.”

He’s always liked both, if he was honest. He didn’t really distinguish people by gender when he was younger. At that young age, it wasn’t with romantic intention—he and the other kids he played with were far too young for that. But the attraction to girls and boys stuck with him all throughout his childhood. Surely that wasn’t influenced by his abuse history—right?

He clutches the edges of the sink tightly, tan knuckles turning white. He’s overwhelmed with the need to talk this out with someone—but who? Who can he talk to about the inner turmoil he had going on? Hunk is undoubtedly asleep at this time in the night, and as much as Lance wanted to confide in him, he didn’t want to trouble his best friend with more talk of his past. All the times Lance has talked to Hunk about it, Hunk listened with a patient and attentive ear, but after one of those times, he caught Hunk sobbing into Coran’s shoulder while the older Altean rubbed his back soothingly.

“I just can’t help crying about it,” Hunk had sobbed. “I hate that this happened to him. I wish I could’ve been there to protect him. I know that’s not rational, but I wish more than anything that he didn’t have to deal with all that he’s suffered because of that _bastard_.”

Lance hates to cause Hunk pain with his past; _Not tonight,_ Lance thinks. Pidge is probably awake working, but he doesn’t know where to even start to look for her, as she tends to hide around the castle. Keith is an obvious no on this front, seeing as he is partly what Lance wants to talk about. Coran—well, Coran is like a father to Lance; he can’t bear the thought of disappointing the only father figure he has left now. Lance isn’t sure that he feels comfortable talking to Allura about this, for whatever crazy reason, which left only Shiro as his final option.

 _Shiro it is,_ Lance thinks to himself as he grabs his comforter around his shoulders and quietly pads into the hall outside his room. The crystal provides a comforting dome of light around him, guiding him down the hall until he comes up to Shiro’s door. The lights are off, and Lance hesitates for a second. _What if Shiro is asleep? What if I wake him up? He needs his sleep; maybe I should just go back._

But before he can step back to walk to his room, the door slides open to reveal Shiro looking curious and very much awake. His eyes soften at the sight of Lance standing outside, and he moves to the side, offering Lance space to walk into his room.

“Hi, Lance,” Shiro says softly, concern gracing his features. “Are you okay?”

Lance swallows around the lump suddenly in his throat. “I-uh, can we talk?”

“Of course, Lance.” Shiro guides Lance inside with a soft hand on his upper back, leading him to the bed while he himself takes the chair at his desk. “What’s on your mind? Was it a nightmare?”

Mutely, Lance shakes his head. “It’s—I just… can’t stop thinking.”

He falls silent, and Shiro gives him a patient look, tilting his head to prompt him to elaborate.

“I… I like girls.” Shiro gives an encouraging nod, knowing there’s more. “But I think… I like boys too,” Lance whispers, and his eyes fill up with tears again as he stares up at Shiro, waiting for the disgust to appear. But it doesn’t show up on the older man’s face, remaining unchanged from the concerned and caring expression that has been there since Lance entered the room.

“Lance,” Shiro says, hushed and soothing, “There’s nothing wrong with that. You know that, right? There’s nothing wrong with you for liking more than one gender, or for liking the same gender. It’s okay.”

The tears leak faster on Lance’s face, but a small bit of relief courses through his system. “But-But what if—I’m—What if it’s because of what _he_ did to me?”

The look on Shiro’s face can only be described with one word: heartbreak. He looks so shattered in that moment that Lance is almost certain he _heard_ the shattering, somewhere in his mind. There has to be something beyond that look, causing that feeling, deeper than what Lance is seeing just on the surface, a deep pain in Shiro’s eyes that momentarily takes Lance’s breath away. _What is it?_

“Oh, Lance,” Shiro breathes, voice thick with emotion. He shuffles closer to him from the desk chair, arms outstretched in a question. “Can I—?”

And Lance, feeling every bit as vulnerable as he did the day of the reveal, feeling bare and small and lightheaded as though he is seconds from falling apart and unraveling, nods and grabs the front of Shiro’s shirt to pull him close. Shiro’s arms encircle him in a tight, protective hug, and it’s everything Lance needs in that moment; to be held and soothed and metaphorically led away from the ledge of no return, held together as he feels so close to coming undone at the seams.

Shiro holds him tightly as he sobs into Shiro’s shoulder, one hand carding through Lance’s hair soothingly while the other holds him close to comfort him. Lance grips the fabric of Shiro’s shirt tightly in his fists, mind reeling as whispers fill his ears and make his skin crawl. He stiffens, and Shiro must notice, because suddenly those whispers are combatted by the sound of Shiro’s voice murmuring assurances and apologies, aimed to calm him down.

It takes some time, but Lance finally relaxes enough to lean back and look Shiro in the eye. He expects to feel embarrassed—who the hell just comes to their leader and cries like a baby in front of them in the middle of the night? —but he is met with a look of deep understanding and concern in Shiro’s eyes, making him send a quick thanks to God that he took his leader up on the offer for this.

“Lance,” Shiro says softly, bringing Lance back to the present. “This part of you has nothing to do with what happened to you. Your sexuality was not influenced by that sick bastard, okay? You were not _turned_ or _tainted_ or any other negative thing you’re thinking of right now. You aren’t confused, or going through a phase—it’s a part of who you are, a piece of the picture that is Lance McClain. It is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide out of fear. It’s just another part of you to love—and everyone on this team loves you, Lance. No matter what.”

Lance desperately wants to believe in his leader’s words, needs them to be true, but those whispers return in a voice that grates on his senses in the worst way possible, raising goosebumps on his skin which begins to feel too tight for comfort. _He’s lying,_ it whispers, a sickening chuckle making him stiffen. _You’re disgusting, everything about you. How can they love someone as fucked up as you?_

Shiro must see the change in him, because his expression turns to one of determination and immense vulnerability, an honesty that Lance has never seen before. With his jaw set, Shiro opens his mouth to speak.

“I know where you’re coming from, Lance,” he says, taking a steadying breath; and it’s in the span of that breath that Lance realizes what he means with those words. _Holy fucking shit._ _Shiro…_ “My situation wasn’t exactly like yours, but I’m not a stranger to that kind of history.”

The admission is raw, shocking and powerful; it hits Lance straight to his core as everything he noticed suddenly makes sense. Those looks, Shiro’s protectiveness over him, the understanding and the heartbreak with which he looked at Lance. Of course Shiro understands; of course Shiro feels his pain, his sorrow, feels heartbreak for Lance. _He’s been here too._

“Shiro…” Lance is at a loss for words. What is there to say? What can he possibly say that could convey the wild hurricane of emotion wreaking havoc inside of him, robbing him of breath and speech at this revelation? His mind is reeling, thoughts chasing each other in a million incoherent directions, but Shiro seems to understand, seems to read everything Lance wants to say through his eyes.

“It was my uncle on my father’s side,” he murmurs, eyes downcast and voice soft. “He was taken care of, discovered and dealt with, but no punishment erases the damage that monsters like _them_ leave behind.” He raises his eyes up to Lance’s again, glinting in the glow of Lance’s crystal around his neck. “I know the pain you feel—the shame, the vulnerability, the memories that don’t leave you alone. I know it all. But Lance—I need you to know, I need you to believe me when I say that _you are not your experiences._ What happened to you, the things you’ve been through—they don’t define you. _You are so much more than the pain you’ve endured_.”

And that’s when any semblance of self-control falls away as Lance breaks into a sobbing mess once again. He moves to hide his face and turn away from Shiro, but his leader just bundles him into his arms again, patting his back comfortingly and repeating those words over and over again as though that would solidify Lance’s belief in them. Lance’s heart aches in his chest, but with the ache comes a warmth he doesn’t expect, a shift in the cracks of his ravaged soul. He aches for Shiro now too, for the little boys that they once were before their innocence was interrupted by hands meant to guide and protect, rather than hurt and abuse. These are words he never thought he’d hear, never even knew he _wanted_ to hear until now. His shame and his fears are soothed with Shiro’s words—because after all, this is _Shiro_ telling him these things; his leader, older brother figure, and a fellow survivor. It loosens the knot in Lance’s stomach, glazes over his heart like a gentle balm.

“I’d give _anything_ for you not to have to live with any of it, but unfortunately that’s not how it works,” Shiro says once Lance calms down again, clearing his throat, and Lance can hear the thickness of emotion in his voice, can feel the wetness of Shiro’s chin against his temple. “The next best thing I can do is be here for you, to make sure that if there’s anything I can do to make you hurt less that I do whatever it is. I’m _always_ here for you, Lance, just like the rest of the team.”

Lance swallows around the lump in his throat. “Thank you,” he says faintly, throat raw from crying. “You have no idea how much it means to me.”

Except that he probably does, Lance realizes, and moves back to look at him as he goes to correct himself, but Shiro gives him a warm smile of understanding to dismiss the apology on his lips.

“Was there anything in particular that brought on your reflection on your sexuality?” Shiro asks softly, releasing Lance enough that they can sit side by side on Shiro’s bed.

 Lance tightens his blanket around his shoulder, fiddling with the crystal around his neck absently as he works up the courage to be honest. Shiro was Keith’s biggest confidant, but Lance knew he wouldn’t spill any secrets between them. _I’m safe here,_ he reminds himself. _Shiro is safe._

“I think I have a crush on Keith,” he blurts out, eyes wide and looking anywhere but Shiro’s face.

To his surprise, Shiro nods, making him snap his gaze to his leader’s face. “Ah,” Shiro says simply. He waits patiently, knowing Lance has more to say.

“It wasn’t just my past that I was thinking about,” Lance continues, gaze on his fiddling hands. “It was my dad too. He’s a hardcore Catholic, and—well, being _not-straight_ isn’t exactly smiled upon. He noticed something in me when I was younger, and told me all about the church’s views on the subject, and I may or may not have developed a bunch of habits to make him happy and get him off my back.”

“Like flirting with everything vaguely female,” Shiro says casually, and Lance winces in shame.

“Yeah,” he says dejectedly, sighing. “I just wanted to make him proud of me. It was the only time he really _praised_ me—everything else was about improving and doing better, not on any of my actual accomplishments. But—that’s beside the point. The point is, that’s stayed with me. My religion. My dad’s approval. My history. It’s all there, pestering me every time I think about it.

“But then,” Lance says after a small silence, and his heart lightens in his chest a bit as his mind turns towards the boy of his affections. “I think about Keith, and how he’s stubborn, and impulsive, and not too keen on social cues or the rules of fashion from this century—and the way he’s fiercely protective and passionate about the things he cares about, and what a skilled fighter he is, and how he may be closed off but there’s so much more to him than I’ve seen that I want to get to know. I think about all of that and how incredibly flawed he is, far from perfect, but… I like him anyway. Flaws and all. And when I think about all of that, those worries all go away and I’m left just _feeling_ things.”

He hangs his head, sighing deeply. He’s in _deep_ , he knows, and it’s been a long time coming. These past two years of going from not being able to stand each other, to tolerating each other, to genuinely enjoying each other’s company, and now to being deeply concerned for each other’s well-being in a way different from before have all built up to the feelings he has now.

“Wow.” Lance lifts his head to look at his leader. “You’ve got it bad,” Shiro finally says eloquently.

Lance narrows his eyes, but there’s no malice behind the look. “Gee, thanks, I hadn’t noticed,” he says sarcastically, knocking his shoulder into Shiro’s. His leader chuckles softly, shaking his head.

“Well, it’s obvious that you feel strongly for Keith, so the question is, what are you going to do about it?”

Lance groans, running a hand through his hair. “That’s just it! I have no idea, because I didn’t think I’d ever get this far! As in, I was prepared to never ever breach the subject of my sexuality. I mean, we’re defenders of the whole entire _universe_ for crying out loud! Thinking about whether I’m into dudes or not isn’t exactly the priority here!”

And yet here they are, discussing exactly that. Go figure.

“And I sure as hell wasn’t planning on falling for any of my teammates, much less my ex-self-proclaimed rival,” he mutters, scoffing despite himself. “What _am_ I gonna do about it?”

Well, for one thing, panic he would not. He has enough things to panic about, in his opinion; tonight was enough panicking over his sexuality crisis. He realized, he cried, he affirmed—moving on. He would probably overthink it until it drove him insane, if he is being honest with himself. He has an unfortunate knack for overthinking everything.

“It’s definitely something you’ve gotta think about,” Shiro says. “But I think you’ll be just fine. And you can always come to me about it—I won’t tell Keith anything. This is strictly between you and me. Okay?”

Lance nods quickly, sagging slightly in relief. “Thanks, Shiro.” They both simultaneously yawn, and laugh as they meet each other’s tired gazes. “Guess I should go so we can both sleep, huh?”

“Get some rest, kiddo,” Shiro says, following Lance to his door. He pats Lance on the shoulder, then ruffles his hair in a brotherly way that makes Lance’s heart ache for a split second, reminding him of his siblings at home. He pushes it away as he gives Shiro a hug before walking out into the hallway. “Goodnight, Lance.”

“G’night, Shiro,” Lance replies softly, giving him a thankful look. “Thanks for everything.”

Lance quietly pads his way to his room, eyelids drooping shut even before he collapses on his bed in a blanket burrito, falling into a peacefully dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an interesting chapter to write. The self-projection was strong in this one. It was kinda hard to get all my jumbled thoughts out into words bc it totally makes sense to me in my head, you know? How do I convey all of that into words that will make sense to people who aren't me? I hope I was able to do it here lol. 
> 
> I believe there are still a few chapters left in this story of mine, I'm not entirely sure how many, but I wanna take a second to thank everyone who has been here with me so far and left me lovely comments and kudos and all of that. You're all amazing, thank you for letting me tell my story and get this out of my system. It's not over yet, but I wanted to say thank you anyway. 
> 
> As always, I'm available for chats on tumblr @fringeiplier or @bi-ladin. Come talk to me about whatever! 
> 
> And as always, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart <3


	8. Contemplation and Things to Think About

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance has some reflections on relationships and throws himself out there for Pidge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter, yay! I do touch on the subject of relationships as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse here pretty lightly, it can go far more in depth than what I've written here, but it's a process of learning about yourself and your partner, and vice versa, and building trust between each other. Lance has lots to learn, but luckily for him he has a strong support system here for him. <3
> 
> Also I'm sorry in advance. <33

Big moments.

That’s all Lance feels keeps happening in life on the castle ship since his history was revealed. The day it happened counts as a big moment, as is the first time he notices his team paying special attention to him. But it’s the small big moments that he lives for, the ones he spends time at night thinking about when sleep evades him. Like the first time Hunk asks for permission to hug him—and he’ll never forget the first time, when Pidge was the one to ask for permission on a no-touch day, he’d said no and she’d kept her distance and given him a patient smile and asked if it was okay for her to just sit with him to keep him company. And if he smiles and blushes uncontrollably when he thinks about all the times Keith has comforted him after panic attacks, he won’t admit it to anyone but himself.

Every day Lance finds himself falling deeper and deeper for Keith. What started out as a simple crush with butterflies and sweaty palms has turned into something more, with deep admiration and a warmth in his chest spreading throughout his body whenever the raven-haired boy is around. The little butterflies have turned into swarms in his tummy, and any semblance of self-control is the best performance of Lance’s life because he feels anything but calm and collected when he’s around Keith.

He suspects he should probably feel panicked about his feelings for Keith—and in a way, he supposes he is, but not in the way he expects to feel. As the days go by after his and Shiro’s talk that night, he feels more and more comfortable with his sexuality. He doesn’t go about broadcasting it, but he no longer treats it like a taboo secret. His flirting has died down considerably—he has nothing to prove, no one to convince; his dad is not with him in space to breathe down his neck and tell him he was a nasty sinner for his feelings. And Lance refuses to believe that God hated him and others like him for something as trivial as the people he loves.

No, he doesn’t panic about his feelings. He worries more about whether his feelings would be reciprocated. On bad days, particularly after nightmares he can’t wake up from, he goes throughout the day feeling dirty; skin too tight for comfort, the ghosts of hands on his skin that he rubs raw in the shower until his normal tan hue is tinged red from his incessant scrubbing. He reverts to self-loathing, going through the day hunched in on himself and attacking his own mind— _who could ever love someone as fucked up as you? Don’t even entertain the idea that he could feel anything like what you feel for him. Why would he want to put up with your baggage? You’re too much for anyone to handle, too much for anyone to love. Damaged goods, tainted, unlovable—_

And somehow… Somehow, he just always knows when it’s getting really bad; Keith will show up out of nowhere and sit next to Lance in silence for a while, and then slowly, once he sees that the tension in Lance’s shoulders has melted away and his body language has opened up, he reaches out and takes Lance’s hand in his own, giving small reassuring squeezes every once in a while.

And it’s moments like those that make Lance stop and think about the two of them. So many private moments that Lance cherishes later on in the night—soft touches, lingering gazes, murmurs of encouragement after battles and panic attacks, the way Keith’s presence can make his heart race and in the same turn soothe it and calm him down. It’s times like these where Lance looks at Keith and feels like there _has_ to be something more between them; there _has_ to be, otherwise he’ll go crazy trying to figure out what else it could be.

And this is when the panic starts to set in, because what if Keith _does_ reciprocate his feelings? What would Lance _do_? He’s never been in a relationship, never pursued anything past the boy he’d kissed at the Garrison; from what he knows, relationships tend to require things like communication, respect, honesty… _intimacy._ He isn’t sure that he can give Keith what he needs, what he wants out of a relationship. Granted, he doesn’t really know what Keith _wants_ , but intimacy seems to be pretty important.

 _And put a pin in that idea,_ Lance thinks to himself as he sits in the lounge on the far side of the room against the wall, shoulders hunched in on himself. _Am I even ready for a relationship? Is that something I can handle right now? Emotionally, mentally, **or** physically?_

There are things he craves, like soft kisses and gentle hand-holding, small snippets of affection that he’s never truly had the chance to exchange with anyone he felt feelings for. But the other aspects of relationships, the deeper intimacy—he isn’t sure he feels ready for that. He doesn’t know when he will be, or if he _ever_ will be. It is a huge commitment, a huge sign of trust to let someone take care of you and vice versa so _intimately_ and _consensually_. Can he trust another person that much? Could he ever get to a point in his life where he would be able to accept touches in intimacy without his breath hitching and his skin crawling, without his mind transporting him to much rougher times he wishes he could forget? Was that kind of life even attainable for someone like him?

He’s talked about it before, to both Shiro _and_ Coran.

“It’s all about patience, my boy,” Coran had said to him, arm over Lance’s shoulder in a fatherly way. He’d taken Lance’s confession about being bisexual quite well, since rules about sexuality were much different on Altea than on Earth. “Intimacy in relationships does not happen overnight—well, most of the time, if I’m quite honest. It’s all a matter of trust and communication, and mutual respect of each other’s boundaries. Whomever you find yourself in a relationship will have to respect your boundaries. It will take time to reach a point where you are comfortable with any and all levels of intimacy that you care to initiate.”

“You take baby steps,” Shiro had said in a separate occasion. “You build a sense of trust between each other, check in to make sure you’re both comfortable. Your partner, if they are at all decent, won’t push you, or purposely make you feel uncomfortable. You never have to do anything you don’t want to, neither of you. You can take it as slow as you need to—there’s no need to rush. Just make sure you communicate with your partner and be open about how you feel. These things take time, and that’s okay. You’ll get there when you’re ready.”

Talking to them helped a lot, but Lance still finds himself slipping back into that dark place in his head. Just the thought of _anyone_ touching his body makes his skin crawl, makes him feel sick to his stomach; but at the same time, the thought of one day _not_ feeling this way at just the mere thought of intimacy gives him a small seed of hope.

The doors on the far side of the lounge slide open with a _woosh_ , and in comes the subject of his thoughts himself, curious eyes meeting Lance’s with gentleness and concern.

“There you are,” Keith says as he stops a few feet away from Lance’s curled up form against the wall. He crouches slowly, coming to Lance’s level. “We’re having a meeting on the control deck in about ten dobashes. You feeling up to it?”

Lance looks at him in silence for a few seconds, taking in the gentle concern in those violet eyes, the warmth in them making him swallow. “Yeah,” he says, taking in a deep breath. More than ever, he wants to be held, even in a brief tight hug, but he knows Keith isn’t entirely comfortable with that sort of thing. Lance takes a deep breath, filling his lungs and slowly releasing it. Keith stands with a nod, and holds his hand out to help Lance up.

Lance takes it, and neither of them let go when he stands. Keith’s eyes are on him, but Lance stares straight ahead; would Keith hug him if he asked? Would that be asking too much of the other boy? Keith seems to see the internal conflict in Lance’s eyes because he asks, in a low voice, “Do… do you need a hug?”

And Lance can’t help but look over in surprise— _Am I that easy to read?_ —and feel touched that Keith _offered_ in the first place. A lump forms in Lance’s throat, but he ignores it and nods, and Keith envelopes him in his arms tightly, feeling warm and safe and everything Lance needs in that moment. He buries his face in Keith’s shoulder and just breathes him in, and the ache in his chest dissipates as he turns his focus onto the feeling of Keith gently rubbing his upper back and murmuring small reassurances, the ghosts of his past fading away as he calms down.

“You’re okay,” Keith murmurs. “You’re safe. You’re here with all of us, and you’re safe. Everything’s okay.”

When he says it with such gentle, yet certain conviction, Lance can’t help but believe him.

~

Life for all the Paladins continues as normal—they go where they are needed, answering distress signals and meeting with the officials of unconquered planets to assure allies on the side of Voltron to stop Zarkon’s reign. The missions have so far gone well, with minimal difficulties that can’t easily be fixed. Lance has learned, slowly, to allow Blue to help with his panic attacks and flashbacks, especially when he’s caught off-guard in the heat of battle. He’s slowly broken out of the habit of blocking her out when his mind goes awry, allowing her to use their bond to metaphorically cradle his psyche and soothe him as best as she can. He blocked her in the past in shame, thinking Blue surely wouldn’t want him to be her Paladin when he was clearly damaged and therefore unfit for the job.

She shut that line of thinking down real quick once he’d opened up to her, practically smothering him in love and affection and praise. _My Paladin is not broken_ , she’d conveyed to him through their bond. _My Paladin is brave and strong, and nothing will change this._

It was exactly what Allura had said to him when he’d gone to ask her about it, as she is technically the Lion expert of the ship—next to Coran, of course.

“Lance,” Allura had said to him patiently as they sat on her bed in her private room. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but you have the strongest bond with your lion among the rest of your teammates. You and the Blue Lion are very close—I’m honestly surprised you’ve managed to hold out on her for so long. She clearly respects your boundaries. But, that aside, she loves you. Nothing you say will make her _not_ love you. A bond with a Lion is forever.”

“What about Zarkon and Black?” Lance hadn’t been able to help blurting out.

Allura had frowned. “Zarkon is technically not even supposed to be alive—he’s sustained himself through unnatural means. Not to mention, he betrayed his fellow Paladins and the Black Lion herself. It pained her quite a lot, but she learned to move on. Now she has Shiro, who is more than capable of treating her right. Their bond is strong as well.”

Lance won’t lie—it pleases him immensely to hear that his bond with Blue is the strongest. From her place in her hangar, he feels her send him a blip of affection, akin to a cat rubbing itself against its owner’s leg. He sends one back, standing from his seat where he’s been keeping Pidge silent company while she works. She glances up from her computer screen, eyeing with curiosity as he stretches.

“You leaving?” She asks, lowering the screen a bit.

He shrugs. “Not sure,” he says, wringing his hands together in contemplation. “Not much else to do, is there?”

Pidge smiles wryly. “On a day off like this, not really.”

Lance plops back down on the couch beside her with a bored sigh. He opens his mouth to say something, but his words are cut off by the castle alarms ringing and Allura’s voice urging them to their lions as soon as possible.

“We’ve detected a distress signal and high Galra activity in a nearby galaxy,” her voice cries through the coms. “Paladins, suit up and get to your lions immediately!”

Pidge and Lance burst into action before she reaches the end of her sentence, running towards their rooms to suit up and get to their lions. Lance suits up in record time, ziplining to Blue in a matter of minutes to see Keith and Hunk climbing into their Red and Yellow respectively. Shiro is already barking orders through their helmets, settled into Black and ready to go.

“Pidge, you in?” Lance asks, and he can’t help the sigh of relief when she chirps her affirmation to him through the coms. Together, Team Voltron travels to the location coordinates provided by Allura and join the fray of the fight. Spacecrafts—Galra and planet-native—fight in a raging battle against each other, the Galra with an advantage in numbers, and Lance is sure they had an advantage of surprise too. They have pushed the natives as far as the planet’s atmosphere, fighter crafts in piles of debris on the planet’s surface already. It doesn’t look good for the natives, but there’s no way Lance is going to dwell on that—he and his team are on a mission, and there’s no way in hell this planet’s getting conquered on their watch.

They fight valiantly in formations as Shiro calls them out, their hours of practice paying off as they execute each one flawlessly. It takes some improvising on Lance and Pidge’s parts here and there when times get rougher in the fights—a Galra ship slips by and causes trouble, or a native ship gets in the way—but they manage well enough. Soon enough the Galra’s numbers have plummeted, and whatever’s left of them make a hasty retreat through a wormhole to recover.

“Is everyone good?” Lance calls through the coms; he always does after battles where they don’t need to form Voltron. It eases his fears to hear the voices of his teammates after a battle is won, lets him know everyone is okay. “Hunk?”

“I’m okay,” comes the grunt from the Yellow Lion, his image popping up on Blue’s monitor.

“Pidge?”

Her image pops up as well, a grin on her face. “I’m good,” she chirps.

“Shiro?”

He appears with a serious expression on his face, but Lance has come to know that face just means he’s gathering data of the battle to ensure everything’s as it should be. “I’m here,” he says, eyes wandering his own monitors.

“Keith?”

Keith’s image pops up, and as soon as he and Lance make eye contact through the screens, Keith’s tense expression melts to one of relief, a rare grin gracing his features. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m good.”

The sound of his voice quells the bout of anxiety in Lance’s stomach, and he lets out a breath of relief, glad his team is safe. “Good,” Lance sighs, letting himself smile at last. “What now, Shiro?”

Before their leader can respond, Allura’s voice greets them over the coms. “Well done, Paladins,” she exclaims proudly. “You did well. The Gridaeons wish to thank you all in person. We’ll land in about five dobashes, but you can all go and greet them now.”

They do as they’re told, landing on the planet’s surface and slowly exiting their lions. The natives—Gridaeons—look vaguely like furry pool noodles to Lance, with crocodile-like tails that he assumes are for balance. They cheer for him and his team—though it sounds like gurgling, which he is too bewildered to laugh at—and shuffle about, keeping their scattered distance from Team Voltron. Around them all is the debris from the battle, shrapnel and larger ship parts strewn about. There are Gridaeons already working to clear it all up as the impromptu festivities go on.

But as happy as the atmosphere is, Lance can’t help but feel like something is wrong—and because his gut has never been wrong before, he doesn’t let it go. His eyes are drawn to the debris, the fallen ships nearby. He can’t help but wonder… Have they been checked for Galra stragglers?

He receives his answer in the form of a Galra soldier rising with a blaster pointed directly at Pidge to his right.

He moves without thinking, Pidge’s safety his only priority, adrenaline spiked higher with instantaneous fear for his teammate. “ _Pidge, look out!”_ He pushes her out of the way, bayard activated in hand, and shoots three precise shots at the Galra soldier, effectively taking him out—but not before the Galra gets a shot in.

The second the shot hits him, he’s allowed one last second of adrenaline-fueled invulnerability; he looks down and acknowledges that he’s been shot before he feels it. And boy, does he _feel_ it. Right in his left side, just below the ribs and traveling up and down throughout his whole body, a burning, shocking pain so intense it’s blinding. He collapses with a shout, and suddenly the world is moving in a flurry of unidentifiable movements, colors, and sounds. He hears weird gurgling noises, the panicked cries of his friends, orders barked over the coms. And then there are arms around him—he’s in too much pain to recognize whose—and he’s being lifted, but the pain intensifies with the movement, flaring up in his whole body and centering in his chest, his heart, in the worst way possible.

His whole world flares a bright white, and then abruptly goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I was sorry! :)))) I'm already working on the next chapter, don't worry, I'll try not to leave you on a cliff-hanger too long! Thank you all so much for reading and leaving comments, I feel it deep in my heart when I read them. You're all such lovely, beautiful individuals, and I am so thankful to you all for reading and joining me on this little journey with this fic <3 (Have y'all noticed I'm a chronic <3 giver? I hope I'm not over-doing the hearts, it's habit to include them lol)
> 
> We're nearing the end here! I've got maybe two more chapters, and a possible epilogue or something I'm thinking about. I have some inner conflicts about it, as it might include some stuff on Earth, but I have some reservations... If any of y'all are interested in lending your opinion or letting me rant about it without spoiling too much, please come talk to me on tumblr @fringeiplier/bi-ladin 
> 
> As always, thank you all from the bottom of my heart <3


	9. Can't Say I Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Keith also winds up in a healing pod and makes Lance really think about things enough to take a huge step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess this is kind of the last official chapter? I'm actually not quite sure, it's currently 3AM and I feel like I had another thing to write into this, but I can't think of it for the life of me, homes. I'm also lowkey still recovering from heat exhaustion, so there's that. Drink water, kids!!! 
> 
> Should the thought come back to me, I will probs add it in, so keep an eye out for that! I'll add an edit note up here if I end up adding anything. I don't think I will, but these sort of things haunt me. 
> 
> Anyway, in case y'all haven't noticed, this isn't Beta read, and as I mentioned, it is currently 3AM, so if there are any mistakes, I will review and fix it later (that shit bothers me too lol). 
> 
> ALSO--There will be an epilogue. And I think it will include some Earth times. But it will probs also include some important things like the development of their relationship as time has passed. That's all I'm gonna say, I don't wanna spoil it. I figure, this is a self-projection piece of fiction, I can indulge in some things. You'll see what I mean. And I'll probs also mention it when I post it. 
> 
> That being said, it might take a bit to post it because my computer is shit and I'm sending it away to get fixed! I won't have it for a few weeks. Gotta get it fixed before I go away for university ahhhh. I have another, but that one is painfully slow. I'll do my best to not make you wait for too long. Speaking of long, this note is getting too long, so I'll blab in the one at the end now. Enjoy this chapter!

Time and memories flash in a blur for Lance. He remembers pain, hot and electric coursing through his body and centering on the focal point of his heart in his chest until his whole world went black. Then, another jolting pain in his heart and a gasp to get oxygen back into his aching lungs— _why are they hurting? Why does my body hurt so much? Why is everyone shouting? Who’s crying?—_ And then he’s being jostled left and right, and his world resumes the monotonous black, fading into unconsciousness instead of abruptly cutting all connection to the world.

And then the next second he hears a _whoosh_ , and with a rush of cold air he’s stumbling out of a healing pod into someone’s waiting arms, his limbs shaking and spasming, muscles too weak to support him. He gasps, filling his lungs with air, the action itself feeling familiar and pricking at his memory. His mind whirls, dizziness sending the world he sees through his lashes spinning.

“Lay him down gently, Shiro, the electricity left him feeling weak. It’ll take a bit to get him on his own feet again. Coran, run the scans just in case,” Allura’s voice murmurs nearby.

“Is he okay?” Hunk’s voice says worriedly.

“Is there still something wrong with him? Does he need more time in the pod?” Pidge’s voice says, but in the hazy confusion of Lance’s mind it doesn’t sound right. She speaks thickly, and sniffles in between sentences as though she’s crying. _Why is Pidge crying?_

“Lance?” Shiro’s voice says above him where he’s been laid on something soft, head lolling on a pillow or something; he’s too dazed to figure it out. He’s never felt this way before, and he isn’t sure he should be alarmed—isn’t even sure if he can bring himself to feel alarmed. “Lance, can you hear me?”

Lance manages a small groan, blinking his eyes open blearily. Details slowly come into place; he’s lying on one of the cots in the med bay, freshly out of a healing pod. Shiro stands at his left side near his head, looking down at him worriedly; Coran and Allura are at his feet, Coran fiddling with a scanner; Hunk and Pidge stand at his right, looking at him with teary eyes. But it’s Pidge that catches his attention, her eyes and nose extremely red and puffy with evidence of extensive crying. It distracts him from noticing that Keith is not among them.

“Pidge?” He says, but his tongue feels like a thick cotton ball in his mouth, dry and useless, and it’s then that he notices he’s really thirsty. Hunk catches on and scurries to bring him a water pouch. Pidge sniffles and comes closer, placing a hand on Lance’s forearm, bare like his torso. Now that his mind is clearing up, he realizes that his flight suit is bunched up around his waist, but he can’t for the life of him imagine why. He also feels a tightening in his chest, the scars on his body tingling as if the eyes of everyone in the room were on them. He moves his arms over his sides, covering them as much as he can without drawing attention, but he catches Coran’s eye, reacting to the rise in Lance’s heartbeat. He’s distracted by Hunk, and gratefully sips the water Hunk brings him, asking Shiro the unspoken question with his eyes. _What happened?_

Shiro sighs, mouth turned down at the corner unhappily. “We’ve been waiting for you to come out of the pod since yesterday, Lance,” he starts. “What do you remember?”

Clearing his throat, Lance croaks, “I remember… the Galra soldier trying to shoot Pidge, and… getting in the way instead. I remember I got shot—and that it hurt like hell.” He shudders, grip tightening around the water pouch. His muscles are slowly settling, lessening the jumping and spasming. Subtly he grabs his flight suit and brings it up higher, up to his navel, releasing a small breath; he can concentrate better knowing nobody can see his scars. “I remember getting knocked out, and then waking up with the same pain, and then… nothing, until now. What am I missing?”

The others shift in apprehension, remembering the events Lance wasn’t conscious for. The looks on their faces put a knot in Lance’s gut; if they look _that_ haunted, it has to have been a bad time.

“We rushed you into the castle as fast as possible,” Pidge sniffles, shoulders hunching in on herself. “When we got you to the med bay… you weren’t breathing.” She breaks off, a sob ripping out of her throat. Lance feels like he’s been punched in the gut, breath shallow as he listens intently to Pidge’s words. “You were hit with we don’t know _how_ many volts of electricity, and it stopped your heart. We had to revive you with an Altean defibrillator and immediately stick you in a pod. You’ve been in there for about a full Earth day. God, Lance, I’m so sorry—you got in the way to take the hit for me, and I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t make it—,”

She breaks off again, succumbing to the sobs. Lance, cold and numb from the news, numbly reaches over to pull her into a hug. He needs the contact just as much as she does; the hug grounds him, reminds him that he is alive and breathing and present. _I’m okay, I’m here, I’m alive,_ he says to himself.

“Don’t apologize, Pidge,” he tells her softly once her sobs have died down a bit. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

They spend time getting Lance up on his feet again, allowing him privacy to change into the sweats and t-shirt they’d brought to the med bay for him—he catches Shiro’s eye and feels his skin crawl, hating that his scars were exposed and seen without him even being conscious. But Shiro’s gaze is soft and understanding, and he knows nobody thought any different of him. He lets the vulnerable feeling run through him before climbing back into the cot where he’d stay the night for monitoring. Coran hands him a bowl of leftovers from the night’s meal, which Lance accepts gratefully. He’d emerged from the pod late in the night, past dinner time, but Hunk—bless him—saved him some food after hearing Lance would be coming out of the pod at this time.

It’s as he’s eating—with Coran and Allura gone to rest after almost constantly monitoring Lance’s vitals—that he asks his fellow Paladins the question weighing on his mind. “Where’s Keith?” Lance asks, watching his teammates carefully.

They all have similar reactions: Shiro sighs, the corner of Pidge’s mouth turns down, and Hunk winces apologetically.

“He’s been training, mostly,” Shiro says, leaning his chin on his hand. “He was just as apprehensive as we were, if not more so. I think he was pretty spooked when Coran had to use the defibrillator… He’s been taking his worry out on the training bots.”

“Does he know I’m out of the pod?” Lance asks. He isn’t going to lie, not seeing the red Paladin there with the rest of his teammates kinda hurt, but Lance is more afraid that Keith is mad at him. He wouldn’t put it past the hothead to be mad at him for saving their fellow Paladin. That doesn’t mean Lance is happy with being ignored like this, though.

Hunk nods, rolling his eyes. “Oh, he knows,” he says, shaking his head and huffing a breath. “The bots aren’t the only things he’s taken his worry out on. He’s been on edge the whole time you’ve been in the pod.”

“I gotta go talk to him, then,” Lance says, picking up his empty plate. Pidge takes it from him, and Lance shoots her a grateful smile. “I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

“Goodnight, Lance,” Pidge says; she hesitates for a second, but then seems to get over her thoughts and holds her arms open to Lance—an open invitation, for him to accept or decline if he so pleases. His heart warms, and he gathers her up into a hug, her face buried in his chest briefly before they separate and he allows Hunk to help him get to the training room to find his mulleted friend.

And find him, he does. Training bots liter the floor of the training room everywhere, dismembered limbs all over the place. And in the center of it all, a whirlwind of black, red, and white, harsh precise movements, a blade in steady hands, a gaze full of determined focus. Keith fights the training bot, matching each blow with one of his own, never faltering in the sweeps and stabs of his sword, all precision and lethality. Lance is awestruck, watching with his mouth slightly agape, taking in the sight of the boy that holds his affections and his heart so completely.

It takes a few minutes, but Keith eventually bests the training bot, stabbing his sword straight through the metal torso. “End training sequence,” he calls out, breathing hard and bending at the waist to catch his breath. Sweat plasters his hair against his forehead, drips down the sides of his face, sticks his shirt to his skin; Lance should not be mesmerized by Keith in this state, but he is so captivated, filled with a flurry of yearning and nervousness, his inner conflict arising again for just a second before Keith glances over at him and does a double-take at the sight of Lance standing there in his night clothes, just watching him.

“Lance!” Keith calls, and rushes over to Lance in a hurry. He stops a few feet away, looking like he wants to hug Lance but isn’t sure how to ask. Lance saves him the trouble of figuring it out and throws his arms around Keith’s waist, relishing in the heat emanating from the red Paladin’s body, unable to find it within himself to be bothered by the sweat surely getting on him now.

Keith hugs him like he’ll never let go, hands running across his upper back and the back of Lance’s head, as if reassuring himself that yes, Lance is there, Lance is okay, Lance is _alive_. Lance finds himself murmuring these things to Keith as they just hold each other, just as much to reassure himself as to reassure Keith.

The embrace is nice while it lasts—Keith suddenly pushes Lance away, blinding fury on his face as he looks at Lance.

“Lance, you idiot, you can’t play hero like that!” He shouts, and Lance would feel incredibly hurt if he didn’t also hear the deep worry and fear in his voice. “You scared the shit out of—all of us! Do you have any idea how worried we were?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, instead gingerly leading Lance back to the infirmary, which Lance allows in his bewilderment at Keith’s sudden mood change.

Lance can’t help it—he hates being yelled at, immediately hardening himself and crossing his arms in front of himself defensively. “Hey, I did what I had to do, okay? Pidge is alright, that’s what matters,” he says, a small spark of annoyance and hurt igniting in his chest.

Keith looks at him with a look of incredulousness and something else he can’t decipher. “Your heart _stopped_ , Lance,” Keith says in a hushed, shaky voice. They’ve reached the infirmary, standing just inside the doorway, the light casting shadows on Keith’s face that tug painfully at Lance’s heart. “Pidge being unhurt isn’t the only thing that matters here! You—I—“

Suddenly, with a sharp inhale, Keith shuts his mouth and turns on his heel, walking out of the infirmary with his body full of tension and stiffness. Lance stares after him, watching his retreating form down the hall until he’s gone. _What was that?_

Whatever it was leaves Lance reeling, anxiety rising in his chest. He can’t leave the argument like this—clearly the ordeal has taken a toll on Keith, and Lance wants nothing more than to soothe his fears. But chasing after the boy now isn’t the right course of action to take. _Better to let him cool off so he’ll actually listen to me,_ Lance thinks, biting his lip and wringing his hands to rid himself of the anxious tension building up. He takes a deep breath and walks the rest of the way to his cot, settling down for the night and wondering if he’ll even get any sleep.

To say he doesn’t get much sleep is an understatement. He lays awake for hours after his and Keith’s fight, his heart twisting painfully in his chest, with hurt for Keith’s pain, and with hurt of his own from Keith’s anger towards him. He can’t wait until the morning, when everyone will be awake and he can acceptably go fix this thing between them. He’s terrified that he will lose the soft smiles, the gentle demeanor Keith seems to only show to Lance; he doesn’t want to lose any part of that side of their relationship. _I’ve got to fix this,_ he thinks vehemently in his head. He closes his eyes…

And what feels like two dobashes pass before he hears Coran’s voice, bright and chipper above his head. “Good morning, my boy! It is time for breakfast—do you feel up to making the trek down to the dining hall, or shall I bring your meal here?”

Lance opens his eyes with a tired sigh and sits up, his whole body sore, but strong enough to make it down to the dining hall. He tells Coran as much, and they slowly make their way down the halls to the dining hall. He’s greeted with five bright smiles—Keith keeps his head down, staring at his plate of goo with a somewhat guilty look on his face. That surprises Lance, yet doesn’t surprise him at the same time. He sighs internally. _Looks like we’re gonna have to talk after breakfast for sure._

Breakfast goes rather smoothly, with light exchanges from the whole team—minus Keith, of course—about how Lance is feeling, and how well he slept.

“I’m feeling better than yesterday,” Lance answers honestly—he ignores the instinct to lie and assure them that he feels 100% fine. He has since learned to trust his team and be completely honest. He notices Shiro’s proud smile from across the table and beams at the unspoken praise. “Didn’t sleep very well, though.”

“The cots aren’t the most comfortable thing to sleep on,” Allura says, smiling apologetically. “But the scans tell us that you’re completely healed, so you’re free to return to your room tonight! As a matter of fact, you can return once you finish eating.”

“That’s right,” Shiro chimes in. “We’d like you to take it easy for a while, rest up to get your strength. The scans say you’re healed, but the shock that blast gave you will leave your muscles pretty sore and weak for a while, even with the pod. So work your way slowly into things, alright Lance?”

Lance nods solemnly. He can feel a pair of violet eyes burning holes in the side of his head from beside him, but he doesn’t dare look Keith in the eye right now. He doesn’t want to scare Keith away. They finish breakfast, and Lance stands to gingerly make his way to his room, but a light tap on his shoulder stops him. Keith stands behind him, not looking at him, fidgeting with his fingerless gloves.

“Can I, uh, help you to your room?” Keith asks in a small voice. As if Lance would say no. As if Lance _could_ say no—he couldn’t even if he wanted to.

“Sure,” Lance says, and lets Keith put an arm loosely around him—loose for Lance to adjust. He guides Keith’s arm to his waist, avoiding his hips, and puts his own arm over Keith’s shoulders for balance. Keith secures his grip, and they walk together at Lance’s pace out of the dining hall and towards the Paladin’s private bedrooms. They’re silent for a good two dobashes before they both simultaneously blurt out, “I’m sorry!”

They freeze, eyes locked on each other’s in surprise. Lance jerks his chin at Keith to continue, moving once again, eyes still wide.

“I’m sorry for blowing up at you like that yesterday,” Keith says, biting his lip nervously. “I was just—you really scared the shit out me, throwing yourself in the line of danger like that. I get that it was to save Pidge, I get that wholeheartedly, but I just—” He breaks off, taking in a shuddering breath as they walk into Lance’s room. It’s dark, the lights dim, but Lance never takes his eyes off of Keith.

 “Seeing you, injured and helpless like that… Feeling for a pulse, listening for your breath and _not finding it…_ And then watching Coran pull our these bizarre-looking instruments of torture and then _shocking_ you back to life with them several times until you finally breathed and opened your eyes again… I _never_ want to see that happen again, Lance. _Never_. I was really worried about you—but that’s still no excuse for going off on you like that. I know how that makes you feel, and I’m sorry.”

Lance, for his part, is utterly shell-shocked at the honest words spilling from Keith’s lips. He never thought about what it must’ve been like to bear witness to whatever happened while he was out of commission. Hearing it described like this is eye-opening to Lance, and it touches his heart to know that Keith cares so much that it affects him like this.

 _It’d be the same with anyone else on the team,_ the voices chime in his head. _You’re not special. This doesn’t mean anything, he still doesn’t and wouldn’t have feelings for a piece of shit like you—_

He pushes the voice aside, shaking his head lightly. “It’s okay, dude,” Lance says, patting Keith’s arm comfortingly. They’re sitting on Lance’s bed now, shoulder to shoulder. “I understand. Honestly, I’d probably do the same thing in your shoes. ‘Cause Lord knows you’d probably end up in a healing pod doing the same heroic shit.” The words send an unsettling chill up his spine, but he ignores it in favor of listening to Keith’s surprised chuckle.

“Yeah,” he laughs dryly. “Probably.”

~

Weeks later, Lance wishes he’d never made that stupid fucking joke in the first place. He just _had_ to open his big mouth and _jinx_ it, didn’t he?

They’re in the heat of battle when it happens. The same planet that they’d saved before is under attack again, this time with more reinforcements from the Galra empire, more ships to defeat in their efforts to drive the Galra away. These ships pack heavier weapons, causing more damage to their lions when they’re hit. Lance knows this firsthand, having gotten hit once already and sent in a small spiral before righting Blue and blasting that ship out of existence.

They’re overwhelming him and Blue when it happens. He’s blasting them as best as he can, weaving in and out of them so they shoot each other and give him recovery time to adjust positions and controls for better aim. It works for the most part, but it only works for so long before they get to be too much.

“I’ve got your twelve, Lance!” Keith’s voice shouts over the coms, the sound of Red blasting ships flowing in with his voice. Lance breathes a sigh of relief, his thanks on the tip of his tongue—but ultimately choked in his throat when he catches sight of the large ion canon aimed directly at Red looming beside them.

“Keith!” He screams, and Keith moves Red out of the way—but he’s a second too late. The blast grazes Red and sends them tumbling out of control, against other ships and jostling in a way that leaves no way Keith made it through that unscathed.

“Keith?” Lance calls, barely breathing, frozen in terror. _“Keith!?_ ”

Only silence from the red Paladin’s line, even as the rest of the team calls out to him. Lance is trembling all over in terror, but the terror quickly melts into fury, white-hot and all-encompassing, directed at the ships, the Galra empire, Zarkon—anyone and everything involved in Keith’s harm. Including himself. _If I’d just been faster, if I had maneuvered better so I didn’t need help, if I’d noticed it quicker—_

Blue sends him reassuring thoughts, and he feels a newer pressure on his psyche, the presence of Red herself as she regained control of herself. She was stable enough to make it to the castle, only frazzled by the graze, but Keith would need a healing pod. He sent her his gratitude for letting him know and urged her towards the castle—to which she sent him what felt like a haughty, amused scoff, and promptly left in the direction of the castle, weaving her way through the chaos.

His anger comes back full force, and suddenly Lance is seeing red—he shoots with blind precision, blasting ship after ship out of existence, wanting nothing more than to destroy the ship that dared to shoot at the boy he loves, nothing more than to get back to said boy and make sure he was alright. The anger burning inside of him blurs away all meaning from time—he doesn’t know how much time passes between the accident and Shiro’s voice claiming victory as the Galra retreat.

He’s pushing Blue back to the castle before Shiro even finishes talking, worry the only thing controlling him right then and there. He makes it in record time, noticing Red landed in her hangar. Coran is just entering himself, startled to see Blue landing and Lance rushing out towards Red. She opens up to him immediately, which he would later think back on because Red doesn’t open up to _anyone_ but Keith, even in dire situations. He runs in and finds Keith unconscious in his pilot seat, a thin trail of blood leaking down his face in his helmet.

Gingerly, Lance removes Keith’s helmet and checks for other injuries, unbuckling him when he sees none. He scoops up his fellow Paladin in his arms and rushes back out, the weight of Keith in his arms barely a trip to his adrenaline-fueled body. He runs down the hall, his fellow Paladins just landing in their own hangars as he does, and Coran has to run to catch up to Lance’s long-legged stride. They have him in a healing suit and a healing pod in record time, leaving Lance to sit beside the pod in a mess of trembling limbs and heaving breaths.

“He’ll be alright, my boy,” Coran says gently, crouching down to Lance’s level. “His scans only detect a small concussion. He’ll be out in a few vargas at most. Do you need a hug?”

Lance runs a hand through his hair and lets out a relieved, shaky breath. _Just a concussion. Thank God._ “I’m okay, but thanks, Coran,” he says, giving his father-figure a strained smile. A hug would be too much for his frayed nerves to handle. He only wants a hug from a certain someone stuck in a pod for coming to save his ass from getting overwhelmed by those damned Galra ships. His thoughts buzz in his head, all returning to the negative end of the spectrum.

_This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you, you know. All you do is fuck up. It’s all your fault, he definitely isn’t going to love you now. As if he ever would, ha. You’re damaged, disgusting, can’t even help yourself when it really matters. Everything about you is undesireable, you’re lucky he didn’t—_

“Lance!”

He jerks at the sound of Shiro’s voice, looking up to see that Shiro is crouching in front of him, hands gently taking Lance’s out of his hair, where they’d begun pulling as he slipped into a panic attack. He was grateful for Shiro snapping him out of it before it could get any worse.

“He’s going to be okay, Lance,” Shiro says firmly, yet gently. “It’s not your fault. Don’t even go there. You warned him before it hit him dead-on. You got him here faster than any of us could have. He’s going to be okay. We’re all going to do some damage control down on the planet. Are you okay to stay here and wait for Keith with Coran?”

Lance nods, taking deep breaths to clear his head. He knows he’ll be a mess when Keith comes out of the pod. He has vargas to wait, and those vargas are going to kill him. He’ll be alone with his thoughts, only able to stare at Keith’s slackened face through the glass of the pod.

Which is exactly what he does the whole time. Coran returns to the control deck to make sure things run smoothly as Allura goes down with his fellow Paladins to speak to the Gridaeons once again. Lance has nothing else to do but think—and of course, he can’t stop himself from thinking, his thoughts like a swarm of bees in his head.

But it’s a more collected swarm this time, flying in formation, their buzzing harmonious in that he thinks of one thing: his feelings for Keith.

This marks the second time one of them almost died. Granted, Keith only had a concussion, but it could’ve been a much worse outcome had he not been able to move out of the way in time. That’s two times that Lance would have lost the chance to tell Keith how he feels. He would have lost the chance to tell Keith how he loves his smile, the sound of his laugh, both rare things that he cherishes when he sees them. He would have lost the chance to tell Keith that he’s the light that guides him in the dark, that with every gaze and touch between them Lance feels his skin tingle and his heart race like he’s run a marathon. He’d have lost the chance to tell Keith that he’s one of the first and last things on his mind every day, that he would die for the chance to wake up and fall asleep next to him every day of his life, that he wants nothing more than to see that smile and hear that laugh go on forever because it means that Keith is happy, and how could Lance not want that?

He can’t stand the thought of those words, these feelings, not coming to light, can’t stand the thought that both he and Keith could die without Keith knowing how much Lance fucking _loves_ him. That Keith holds Lance’s heart and soul in those fingerless gloved hands so completely. That Lance would do anything and everything for Keith to be happy and safe.

He’s in deep, so, so deep. And now, as he stares at Keith’s blank face in the pod—all sharp, delicate lines and angles, gentle and harsh at the same time—he realizes _holy fuck, I'm so in fucking love_ and he doesn’t mind. His worries about relationships and intimacy fade to the background; those are bridges he can cross when he reaches them. He’s so in love with Keith. _So in love._ The thought brings tears to his eyes and a shaky smile on his lips.

These are his thoughts for the remaining two vargas that Keith is in the pod. The team comes back to wait with him, and let him be the one to catch Keith when he tumbles out of the pod, looking up at them with a confused expression, especially when the tears streak down Lance’s cheeks.

The words are on the tip of his tongue. All of his emotions bubble at the surface, nerves frayed and shot with the stress and worry that had consumed him. He opens his mouth, but all that comes out is, “You broke your promise.”

Keith doesn’t even get mad at that comment, concern only growing when the tears come in earnest down Lance’s face. “Lance?” He says, violet eyes scanning Lance’s features for answers.

He doesn’t respond—he tries, but all that comes out of his mouth is a broken sob. He buries his face into Keith’s neck, clutching onto the raven-haired boy like a life-source, like he’d rather die than let go. Keith’s arms come around him, holding him tightly, just what Lance needs. This is right; this is _home_. Right here, in Keith’s arms, while Keith whispers reassurances in his hair, repeating exactly what Lance had said to Keith when the situation was reversed.

_It’s okay, Lance. I’m here. I’m okay. I’m alive._

~

Lance can’t sleep. It’s been a while since Keith popped out of the healing pod, and although he didn’t want to let go, he had to release Keith for scans and a shower and dinner. His mind is on Keith, as it usually is, and he becomes restless with the knowledge that every word he’d wanted to say had stayed in his mouth. He doesn’t want to bother Keith by barging into his room with his confession—which he is totally tempted to do, but he wouldn’t dare inconvenience the other boy like that lest he annoy Keith—so he does the next best thing.

He gathers his blanket, slings his crystal around his neck, and walks out the door to walk himself to drowsiness.

But he finds himself settling down on the floor of the observatory deck, gazing at the wide expanse of space through the window wall. He isn’t sure how long he sits there gazing at the stars before he sees the pink glow of another crystal drifting towards him. He doesn’t need to look to see who it is. The rapid beating of his heart, the warmth of affection pooling in his chest, is confirmation enough.

“You still mad at me?” Keith says quietly as he sits beside Lance on the ground.

Lance looks straight ahead, unable to help the fond half-smile on his face. “No.”

He feels Keith stiffen in surprise, clearly not expecting that answer. “So why the silent treatment? Nothing to say to me?” Lance isn’t sure if he’s imagining the hurt he hears in Keith’s voice.

He shifts his position on the ground, turning his body so he’s facing Keith, legs spread wide to accommodate Keith between them. “More like… too much to say, and so many words to use,” Lance mumbles, fiddling with his crystal.

Keith shifts to sit in the same position, sliding his legs under Lance’s and scooting closer, leaving about a foot of space between them. Their thighs overlap each other, their crystals’ lights glowing purple on their faces and chests between them where the colors collide. The way Keith looks, pale skin bathed in soft purple, makes Lance’s mouth go dry, and his heart skip a beat.

“What’s this? Lance McClain, at a loss for words? Never thought I’d see the day,” Keith jokes, but his tone betrays the worried curiosity he feels.

“Only you can make me feel like this,” Lance says, closing his eyes as he releases a breath. He’s no longer filtering his words, just letting them all tumble out of his mouth. “Only you can take my breath away with a smile, a laugh, a touch. Only you can make my heart race like a marathon runner’s, and at the same time calm me down when I’m in over my head. You ground me, and make me feel safe—and at the same time, you make me feel like I’m out of control and have no idea what I’m doing when I’m around you. You know when I need you, and you know what to do when I’m having an episode, and you respect my boundaries and—God, you’re so perfectly imperfect, you drive me insane. You’re strong, and smart, and so capable and independent and self-sufficient, you don’t need me. You’re beautiful and amazing and sweet to me… You’re reckless and impulsive and emotions aren’t your thing, but you still _try_ , and you have no idea what that does to my heart.

“You _have_ my heart. My heart, my soul, my everything. You captivate me in every way, and I can’t stand the thought that today or even weeks ago when I was in the healing pod could’ve wiped out any chance of me telling you any of this. I want—no, I _need_ you to know that I… I love you, Keith. I absolutely adore the ever-living shit out of you, and I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and I don’t know if you feel the same, but you deserve to know. I can’t keep this to myself anymore. I don’t want to scare you away, but I don’t want something to happen to either of us and leave all of this unsaid. So… that’s my soul, opened up completely to you. …I love you.”

The last part is a whisper, a breath on Lance’s lips as his gut clenches now that his brain has caught up with his mouth. His ears ring in the silence that surrounds them. He isn’t sure he can bring himself to open his eyes and look Keith in the eye.

“Lance,” Keith whispers, “Look at me.”

And Lance has no choice but to obey; he could never deny Keith.

There is a look in Keith’s eyes, something raw and deep and _tender_ that takes Lance’s breath away. They hold each other’s gazes for a long moment, Lance seeing everything he needs to see in those violet eyes.

Keith’s hands come up to Lance’s jaw, gloveless for once, all gentle and tenderness. “Can I?” Keith asks, eyes flickering down to Lance’s lips.

For Keith is not a man of words. No, Keith is a man of action. What he can’t convey verbally is conveyed in other methods, and Lance’s heart swells with joy, soars in elation and relief.

“Please,” he breathes, hands coming up to Keith’s face. And then Keith’s lips are upon his, soft and gentle and loving, conveying everything he didn’t have words for. _Yes,_ his kiss seems to say, _I love you too. You are my heart, my everything, and I love you._ The kiss is slow and tender; they learn the curve of each other’s lips, the taste of each other on their tongues, the feeling of each other’s hair in their hands and the shape of their jaws. It doesn’t last incredibly long, and their hands remain where they are, but there is plenty of time to explore, plenty of time to learn each other better. They break apart, and the grin on Keith’s face sends Lance’s heart racing once again.

“God,” Lance gasps, leaning his forehead against Keith’s. “If this is what being with you is going to be like all the time, I’m gonna have a heart attack real soon.” He takes one of Keith’s hands and places it on his chest, right over his heart. Keith smiles again at the feeling of Lance’s heartbeat beneath his fingers.

“Yeah, well,” Keith says, placing one of Lance’s hands over his own racing heart. “So am I. Can’t say that I mind, though.”

And as they curl up together to gaze at the stars until they fall asleep, Lance can’t help but agree.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I can’t say I mind either.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, there we have it! Thank you all so much for coming along with me on this journey, it was truly a therapeutic and freeing thing to do for me. I'm so grateful to you all for your lovely comments and words of encouragement. You're all beautiful souls and I wish you all the absolute best, you're amazing <3 This has been such a wild ride of emotions, you have no idea. I can't believe I made it this far. I didn't really know what I was doing when I first started writing this, but seeing it reach its end is so gratifying, like, who'd have thought? I sure didn't, lmaooo. 
> 
> This isn't the end of me on writing, though; I have other ideas for things I wanna write in the works, things I'll be posting soon after a little break after this, so if you'd like to see those, keep your eye out for me! 
> 
> Feel free to talk to me on tumblr too, I'd love to talk to you guys: @fringeiplier/bi-ladin
> 
> And as always, thank you all so much, from the bottom of my heart <3


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we take a look at where they've all ended up five years later, after a seven-year war in space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'll leave my emotional rambling for the end notes lol)
> 
> Holy shit my dudes, sorry this took so long! There was quite a bit to fix with my laptop, and then when I started writing the chapter, it just wasn't coming out how I wanted it, so I scrapped my first attempt and wrote all of this instead. I like it MUCH better than what I had, and I hope you guys do too! 
> 
> Without further ado, enjoy the epilogue, and the end of our journey <3

_Five Years Later_

 

Warmth and sound surround Lance as he sits with his eyes closed, letting his surroundings permeate his senses. Smells and sensations that he at one point had never thought he’d experience again. The smell of salt and sea water filling his lungs. The feeling of wind, and warm sand between his toes and slipping through his fingers. The sound of seagulls and the crash of waves lulling in and out of the shore. The warmth of the sun on his skin—oh how he had _missed_ the sun. He takes in another deep breath of the ocean air, and slowly opens his eyes again.

He’ll never take the view before him for granted again. The beautiful blue of the ocean nearly blinds him, paired together with the white of the sand he sat on—he’d missed it so much throughout the seven years he and his team had been up in space. But the war is over now, and they have returned home to their families and loved ones.

Sometimes he still can’t believe it. He’ll wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares of the various gruesome things they’d seen in battle; sometimes, someone on the team didn’t make it, or _nobody_ made it, and he was left all alone in the nightmare. But Keith is always there beside him to reorient him and bring him back from the panic-induced haze of his nightmares, holding him tightly and whispering reassurances that they’re all alright, that they’ve all made it through the war alive, that they’re back home now, safe and sound.

It’s almost like a dream, too good to be true that they’re back home on Earth, and have _been_ on Earth for almost six whole months now. It took a lot of negotiation with the government and the Garrison to work out an agreement with Allura and Coran to let them stay and resume their lives with a few conditions; they’d be allowed to do what they pleased on Earth, but while away on diplomatic ventures through the universe (as they had to do every couple of months because their work as Paladins of Voltron is not over yet) they would have to send reports and information on the planets they visited and the treaties they made with the inhabitants. In exchange for this information—which the government and Garrison went _nuts_ for—the Paladins were given living spaces and handsome wages for their cooperation and their service in the intergalactic war against the Galra Empire.

Hunk had moved back in with his mothers, having missed them so much that he couldn’t bear to be without them while he was here on Earth. He calls Lance and the others in group calls frequently to check in and make sure everyone is alright. Pidge had moved in with her parents, having found her brother and father during the team’s fifth year in space. Shiro had moved into a small apartment with Matt, and Lance and Keith—they’d moved in together in a small beach house overlooking the ocean from the back deck, a short five-minute walk from the beach itself. Lance can’t help feeling grateful to Allura for negotiating with the government on their behalf to make all of this possible. Normalcy was not something he thought he’d ever have again.

And yet, he revels in it as he sits on the beach with his hands buried in the sand, Keith beside him, Hunk and Pidge walking along the shore with their feet in the water, and Matt and Shiro walking around collecting little shells from the sand. It almost feels surreal—the instinct to be on high alert at all times, unable to relax in the stillness of life in the moment, is hard to let go, especially after living that way for more than five years straight. Even now, with the full knowledge that the war is over, that everyone he loves is alive and safe, he feels the tension building in his shoulders, the anxiety balling in his gut and prickling at his skin. He shuffles his fingers in the sand, carding them through the small grains in an attempt to ground himself—

And the he feels a pair of lips on his bare shoulder; he turns to look at Keith, realizing his lover had noticed the signs of unease in him. Keith meets his eyes with violet ones full of understanding and concern. Lance lets out a small breath, holding his gaze and accepting the arm that winds itself around his waist, Keith’s palm landing just above his hip. Seven years ago, that would have sent him into a panic attack, spine rigid and lungs constricting, the close proximity to his scars and the memories of a different kind of touch there sending his mind back into the past.

But they have learned a lot in seven years. About themselves, about the universe, about life. They’ve lived through seven grueling years total of war in space, fighting to end the reign of Zarkon and the Galra Empire as a whole. Risking their lives countless times, nearly losing each other over and over again, giving it their all for the promise made in the space between loving, desperate lips to come back and make it through for each other. Seven grueling years’ worth of nightmares and pain and fear—the kind that is seen behind eyelids and in lonely darkness, the kind that is heard in complete silence, felt in the stillness that felt wrong after so many years of having to spend every waking minute on high alert because anything could happen in the span of a second, there’s no time to relax. Seven grueling years of scars marking their bodies, telling stories of horror and hardship, of pain and visions people so young should never have to see. Seven grueling years of heartache and yearning for a place they once called home.

Seven years of horror—but also seven years of progression with one another. They learned the ins and outs of each other, their personal limits and slowly but surely overcame their fears. This was more so the case for Lance; the road to comfort with intimacy was a painstakingly slow journey for them, but Keith never once complained. Lance saw his true colors in those five years that they were officially together; he learned that Keith is a million shades of red, vibrant and bright in battle and to the rest of the world, and soft and gentle when they are together. He is a flame, one that Lance holds in his heart without fear of being burned; it keeps him warm when the coldness of the world is too much. And likewise, Lance is the coolness that keeps Keith’s flame from blazing out of control when the world overwhelmed him.

Looking into those loving violet eyes reminds Lance of those first times they tried for further intimacy than just kissing. It had been a bit of a nerve-wracking experience for Lance—he was terrified of disappointing Keith if he couldn’t handle it, terrified of something going wrong and making Keith feel guilty. But with a few deep breaths and reassuring whispers that he had all the choices here, that if he didn’t want to do this they didn’t have to, that Keith loved him no matter what, he took Keith’s offered hands—offered to let _him_ be the one to direct him—and gently guided them to his collarbones, allowing him to explore his bare torso.

The only time he stopped Keith’s hands was when they wandered down to his hips, where his scars peeked out a few inches from the waistband of his jeans. That was an area they took special care with, an area they worked on slowly becoming comfortable with. It took a long time to work through all of Lance’s discomforts, but he was determined to not let it get in the way. And Keith was patient— _so patient_. There were many times when they had to stop because Lance had reached his limit, and Keith gave him his space immediately without a second thought or complaint, nothing but concern and love in his eyes. And it was that look that brought Lance to tears every time—tears of love, tears of frustration with himself, tears of gratefulness to have someone like Keith in his life.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he’d asked through tears one night as Keith covered their bare bodies with the blanket.

Keith merely shook his head, wiping Lance’s tears away with a gentle swipe of his thumb. “May I?” he murmured, glancing at Lance’s lips. In answer, Lance pressed his lips against his lover’s. They parted after a minute, and Keith put his arms carefully around Lance as he snuggled into the shorter boy’s side. “I love you with everything I am, Lance,” he whispered into his hair. “I would wait for you forever. I will be here by your side until you decide you don’t want me to be anymore. And even then, I will still love you and want the best for you, because you deserve that. I would do anything for you. We don’t have to do this if you decide you don’t want to. It won’t make a difference to me. Being with you makes me more than happy enough. I want you to be happy too.”

His heart had soared and filled with love for the man beside him. Keith had learned a lot of things over the years, apart from how to be with Lance. He learned things about himself and many lessons that Lance had taught him; tolerance, gentleness, how to express his feelings, and perhaps most importantly— _patience_. Through patience—and communication and trust—he and Lance had learned how to love each other. He knew where Lance’s lines lied, and never to cross them, and how to calm his lover down when the world grew to be too much, and the right words to say to bring him back to earth and reorient him when he was lost. He knew how to care for Lance, when touch was needed and when it was the last thing Lance wanted, when to wrap his arms around his lover and whisper reassurances of Lance’s growth and strength. He learned Lance like the back of his hand—something he’d never done before, never _had_ to do before, never _wanted_ to do before. But that was before—before he’d fallen in love, before he’d had someone to live for, before he had _Lance_. And now that he has him, he isn’t letting go.

Lance, likewise, had learned a lot about Keith as well. He learned all of his quirks and the signs and body language that meant different things about his lover. He learned to watch for the tension in his lover’s shoulders, the fidgeting of his hands, the slight pacing and inability to sit still, came to learn that this was when Keith needed to be cradled in his arms and rocked for a while, occasionally sang to, in the seclusion of their room covered in blankets, away from the prying eyes of everyone else. He learned to recognize when things were getting to be too much for his lover, knew when he was transported in his memory back to the day Lance had been injured and needed his heart restarted, knew that this was when Keith just needed to lie between his legs with his head pillowed on Lance’s chest, his ear pressed to the spot over his heart to listen to the heartbeat and reassure himself that Lance was alive. He learned his lover’s love—the slow, all-encompassing heat that was the lava of Keith’s love. Other who knew him as Keith the Red Paladin assumed him to be a wildfire, fierce and burning through everything in his path; but Lance knows better. He knows the real Keith, has felt the lava and returns it with his own ocean of love.

“You’re thinking pretty loudly,” Keith murmurs, bringing Lance back to the present. “What’re you thinking about?”

Lance hums for a second, leaning forward to press a kiss against his lover’s forehead. “Just reminiscing,” he says. “Thinking about how much I love you.”

Keith gives him a sweet smile, melting Lance’s heart a bit. “Hmm. And what about before?”

Lance sighs; he can’t hide anything from Keith. “Just stressing about old stuff. Thinking back.”

His lover hums, pressing his lips back to Lance’s bare shoulder and smoothing his thumb over his hipbone. “I know it’s hard,” he murmurs. “We’re safe now. Everything’s okay. You still have to call your mom when we get back into the house later.”

Lance can’t help the smile that brings to his face, and Keith smirks, satisfied with his little distraction. It’s one of the developments about readjusting to life on Earth that Lance still needs to get used to. Going seven years without hearing his mother’s voice, unable to pick up his phone and call her—it made suddenly having the ability to do so a very exhilarating experience.

As he and Keith lie back onto the sand, listening to the sounds of the beach around them, Lance reminisces. He remembers the day he came home, completely wrecked with anxiety and excitement, having waited impatiently during the two weeks it took Allura and the government to reach suitable negotiations. He had grabbed Keith and they’d gone to Lance’s house, the route still as familiar to him as it always was.

He'd been so incredibly nervous, his palms sweaty and his breathing irregular. He caught Keith’s concerned gaze out the corner of his eye, and attempted to look calm, but the squeeze of Keith’s hand around his let him know he was failing miserably. It wasn’t until they reached the gate—the rickety old gate that really didn’t keep anything on or off of their property—that Keith stopped Lance from moving further, turning his lover around to face him.

“Lance,” he said, bringing his hands up to either side of Lance’s face. “Take some deep breaths with me, okay? In and out.” He breathed deeply a few times, Lance mirroring the action until his heartbeat slowed down a bit. “Everything will be okay. You’ll be okay, they’ll be okay. They’ll be so happy to see you, Lance, you know they will. You’ll be fine.” He pressed a kiss to Lance’s kiss, offering him an encouraging smile.

Lance’s heart squeezed in his chest with adoration; he brought Keith’s hands from his face to his lips, kissing them gingerly in thanks. He didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t have Keith there with him for this. He desperately tried to quell the knot of anxiety in his stomach, intertwining his fingers with Keith’s and taking another deep breath before opening the gate and walking along the cement pathway to the door. Toys littered the lawn here and there, making Lance wonder absently just how much had changed in his absence. _I’ll have to ask_ …

But suddenly they were at the door, and Lance’s heart was beating wildly in his chest again, all thoughts flying out the window in his head. Keith gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, giving him the strength to ring the doorbell.

The sound of a dog barking inside brought a smile to his face. The sound of his mother’s voice shouting at the door and the dog brought tears to his eyes. He was rigid, and had half a mind to turn and run, but the door opened before he could.

Time seemed to stop the second he met his mother’s eyes. Ocean blue on ocean blue, storms of emotions in both—the tears in Lance’s eyes spilled over, and his mother, who looked like she was looking at a ghost, stared in shock and disbelief, her own eyes misty. Her hand flew to her mouth, and the tears in her eyes also spilled. She looked almost exactly like Lance remembered her—frizzy curly brown hair, dark skin, still dressing in her floral printed shirts and mom jeans, hands calloused from years and years of hard labor. She looked like home. _Lance was home_.

“Mama,” he choked out, and Keith released his hand and placed one on the small of his back to gently push him forward. “I’m home, Mama. I’m home.”

And then his mother’s arms were wrapped around him in a bone-crushing grip, and she cried salt into his hair, yanking him down to hold him. Lance didn’t complain, crumpling to his knees with relief and overwhelming emotions as he breathed in the achingly familiar scent of his mother. He’d stay there for the rest of his life happily.

“Elora, who’s at the door?” A deep, gruff voice called from further in the house. Footsteps followed, stopping abruptly as they came into view. “Who— “

A tall man, just a few inches over Lance, stood a few feet behind his wife, eyes wide and disbelieving as he took in the scene before him. He looked just as Lance remembered him—graying hair at his temples, moustache and stubble littering his face, skin a few tones lighter than his mother’s. Lance’s father stumbled a step forward as Lance stood up with a sniffle. “Lance— _mi hijo—_ “

Lance was wrapped up in another set of arms, grip that of a drowning man holding onto a raft for dear life. He pushed his face into his father’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of old leather, smoke, and sweat. The dog—their old beagle Cuba, named after their place of origin—ran up to Lance excitedly, and Lance gave a teary laugh, reaching one hand down to pet the extremely excited pup. It was an overwhelming experience, standing in his house again after years of stamping down the hope that he’d ever see it again. He couldn’t imagine how it must’ve felt for his parents to open their door to see their supposedly dead son, looking older, broader, scarred and weathered, standing on their doorstep. All he felt was immense relief as they both gathered him into their arms again.

Once they’d calmed down a bit, they turned their attention to Keith, who had watched the whole encounter in respectful silence, a happy smile paired with drawn eyebrows on his face. “Who is this, _mijo_?” His mother asked, sniffling as she smoothed down her shirt in an attempt to compose herself. But the death grip she had on Lance’s arm, as if terrified he’d disappear again if she let him go, fooled nobody.

Lance stepped back, his nerves coming back again full-force. “This is Keith,” he said, looking Keith in the eye; he saw love in those violet eyes, giving him the courage to take his lover’s hand and intertwine their fingers, facing his parents again. “My boyfriend.”

Both of his parents froze, eyes darting back and forth between the two paladins. A lump formed in Lance’s throat, and he rushed to talk before they could reject him. “Mama, Papa, I—“

But Lance’s father was shaking his head—not in response to what he’d already said, but in response to what he was going to say. He stepped forward and took his son’s shoulders in his hands gently, but firmly. “ _Hijo mío,_ ” he said, voice thick with emotion, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “ _No me importa._ It does not matter to me that you like boys. I’m just glad you’re here, my boy. I’m glad you’re _alive_.”

Lance was so overcome with relief that the next few hours passed by in a blur. He remembers his parents hugging Keith, welcoming him to the family, and calling other family members through phone and Skype to tell everyone the news that Lance was back home. It wasn’t until after all of that that his parents sat down and asked him _where_ he’d been all this time. With Keith’s help, they’d explained together all the things that went down, from the day they’d disappeared and rescued Shiro from the Garrison all the way to now. They explained the Lions and their responsibilities as Paladins of Voltron, and their role in the intergalactic war they’d fought all these years against the Galra Empire. He’d watched as his parents took everything in, their eyes growing horrified and saddened with every word.

In their eyes, they looked at their son and saw a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, a far cry from the carefree boy working hard in his studies to become a fighter pilot and follow his dreams. They took in his army jacket, noting with sadness that he filled it out, no longer swallowed by the fabric on his formerly small frame; they took in his calloused hands, no longer soft after years of fighting and working in the war; and with perhaps the most sadness, they took in all visible patches of skin, all marred with scars. His mother’s eyes lingered on the scar on his face, which stretched from his right temple, through his brow, and down to his cheekbone, just beneath his eye. She’d reached forward and traced it lightly with her fingers, and he’d taken her hand and pressed a kiss to it, smiling with understanding.

If he’d thought explaining their journey was hard, coming out to them about his abuse history was even harder. It wasn’t something Lance had a lot of practice with—he’d only come out about it once, to his team, and that hadn’t really gone down in the best way. He’d stumbled through the whole thing as best as he could, unable to look them in the eye for more than a few seconds at a time. Keith had been at his side the whole time, holding his hand and rubbing reassuring circles in his back, silently encouraging him and giving him strength.

Looking back, Lance doesn’t know what he’d have done if he hadn’t had Keith there with him as he told them. He doesn’t know what he’d have done if Keith hadn’t been there when his parents reacted in anguish and regret, apologizing and asking for his forgiveness. He doesn’t know what he would’ve done if he hadn’t had Keith there to hold him the same night as he cried, after the conversation was long over—after his parents broke the news to him that Arturo had eloped to Nevada two years after Lance had gone to space, and turned up dead from heroin overdose.

“Lance!”

Pidge’s voice snaps Lance out of his thoughts, and he looks over towards her in question, ignoring Keith’s small snicker at catching him distracted again.

“What?” He calls, nudging Keith’s temple with his own.

“You coming in, or what? Hunk and I are thinking about it, but you’ve gotta come with!” She gestures wildly at the water lapping at her feet, the tide slowly rising as time passes.

He gives her a small grin, nodding his head. “Yeah, I’ll be right there!” He turns to look at his lover, pressing their foreheads together. “Care to join me, my love?”

Keith snorts in amusement, running a calloused finger tenderly along Lance’s defined jaw. “Maybe,” he murmurs, eyes looking at Lance’s lips. “I might need some convincing, though.”

Lance gives him a bright smile, full of love and happiness, and presses his lips to Keith’s in a loving kiss. They part, and Lance nods his head toward the shore. “Race you!”

He shoots up and sprints towards the water, leaving a sputtering Keith behind and laughing at Keith’s indignant call behind him. “You cheater!”  He gets Lance back by pushing him into the sand later, and Lance can’t help thinking that this day, surrounded by his space family, couldn’t have gone any better.

-

But of course, where there is good, there is also some bad.

_“Lancey-boy…”_

_Lance runs, shoving branches out of his way as he tears through the forest as fast as he can. That voice still follows him, sounding much too close for him to even **think** of slowing down. _

_“Lance… Come here, Lance. It’s me, your cousin!”_

_He looks over his shoulders sporadically as he runs, adrenaline in his veins pushing him forward, ignoring the ache in his muscles and lungs. He can’t see the bastard anywhere, can’t tell where the voice is coming from, how close the monster is. **Gotta get away, gotta get away—**_

_“Lance! Come on, I wanna play a game with youuuu….”_

_When Lance turns his head back around to look in front of him, he skids to a stop, heart dropping at the sight of the monster standing before him. He’s paralyzed by the sight, unable to fill his burning lungs with the oxygen he needs, suffocating with the fear that turns his blood to ice in his veins. He can do nothing but watch as the monster takes a step closer to him, about 10 feet away._

_He looks just as Lance remembers; tall, lean, brown hair, charming smile. Just looking at him makes Lance feel utterly sick to his stomach. He knows the reality behind the facade he exuded to the outside world; Lance knows the monster that hides beneath the surface, can sense it lurking and slowly coming out._

_“Found you, Lancey-boy,” Arturo says._

_It breaks the spell holding Lance captive. He pushes back, putting distance between them without turning around and losing sight of him. The monster continues to walk forward, pace leisurely, smile turning into something more sadistic as he watched Lance back away from his advances._

_“Where you going?” He calls, laughing maliciously as he walks. “There’s nobody here but you and me, buddy. None of your friends are here to save you.”_

_The distance between them suddenly shrinks from 20 feet to 5 in the span of a blink, and panic strikes through Lance’s heart in the extreme._

_“Stay the fuck away from me!” He shouts, scrambling to restore the distance. The sound of the monster’s laugh is nearly painful, grating against his eardrums like nails on a chalkboard times ten._

_“Nobody’s here to save you,” Arturo repeats, glaring at Lance, finally standing still. “Your friends--Hunk, Shiro, Pidge, the others--they’re not here to save you. Why would they even **want** to save you? You’re nothing special. You think they love you? How could they love someone as fucked up and damaged as you?”_

_The words hit Lance like a punch to the gut, merciless and unforgiving, leaving him gasping for breath. They render him immobile, paralyzing him as he’s dragged under a tide of self-loathing, unable to do anything but fall to his knees and struggle as Arturo stalks over to him._

_“They **hate** you. You’re useless to them. You’re a piece of garbage, unworthy of love or protection. Your boyfriend Keith? He doesn’t love you. None of them love you!”_

_Arturo reaches him then, and grabs hold of the collar of Lance’s shirt, tugging up him to his feet. The touch of his hands on Lance’s skin burns, and Lance cries out, fear and anger overtaking him as he pushes Arturo away with all his strength, sending the monster flying backwards._

_“Leave me **alone**!”_

-

Lance sits up in a cold sweat, hair and night clothes plastered to his skin, shrouded in darkness and incredibly disoriented. Adrenaline courses through his veins as remnants of the dream flit in his head, his skin unpleasantly tight at the memories. He gasps, wrapping his arms around himself as he struggles to make sense of the jumbled thoughts in his brain. _I’m okay_ , he thinks to himself desperately as he fights the flight-or-fight instincts thrumming beneath his skin. _It was just a dream. I’m okay, everything’s fine. Just a dream._

Not even a full 30 seconds have passed since he woke up, but Keith shoots up beside him, immediately alert and worried about him. “Lance?” He says, voice husky from sleep but tinged with worry. “What’s wrong, love? Are you alright? Was it a nightmare?”

Lance nods, still disoriented, still chanting the mantra in his head. Keith twists to the side for a second and suddenly their room floods with a soft yellow light from their lamp. It helps, being able to see what’s around him, being able to see his lover beside him. Keith’s violet eyes are looking at him with love and patience, asking a silent question. _Can I hold you?_

Lance doesn’t give him the chance to ask verbally, leaning his head on Keith’s shoulder. Keith takes it in stride, already familiar with Lance’s mannerisms in times like these. He slides his arms securely around his lover, holding Lance close.

“Where are we?” Keith murmurs. He always knows how to bring him back to reality, out of the haze that clouds Lance’s mind after nightmares or flashbacks—of Arturo, and of the war.

“In our room,” Lance replies in a small voice, pushing his face into the crook of Keith’s neck and taking a deep breath. His lover is steady, secure, and grounding.

“Where else?”

“In our beds. Covered in the blankets. You’re holding me, and I’m talking to you.”

“Good,” Keith hums encouragingly. “Who are we?”

“I’m Lance, Blue Paladin of Voltron. You’re Keith, Red Paladin of Voltron.” He pauses for a second, lips curling into a shaky smile against Keith’s neck. “The love of my life.”

Keith presses a kiss to his temple. “How do you feel?”

Lance takes another deep breath, before leaning back in Keith’s arms enough to look at his face. “Better,” he says, biting his lip and nodding decisively.

Keith runs his hand soothingly over Lance’s arm, giving him the soft smile Keith only reserved for Lance. “Good. Do you need anything? Water?”

Lance shakes his head, kissing Keith’s chin just because he can. “I’m okay.”

The next words are spoken after a second of hesitance. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

He sighs, pursing his lips as he considers the question. Most times after he had nightmares it was better to talk it out with Keith; it seemed to release it all from his brain and let him go back to sleep without slipping back into the nightmare again. He gives a small nod, gently lying back down on the bed. Keith never lets him go, rubbing his back in small circles. His heart tugs in his chest with affection; Keith grounds Lance more than he’ll ever know, even after the five years they’ve been together.

“It was pretty similar to the last one,” Lance says in a low voice, unwilling to interrupt the peaceful blanket of silence in the room. “I was the same age as I am now, and _he_ was there, and he wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept saying all these stupid things about you guys…”

“Like what?” Keith murmurs, arms tightening subtly around him. He’s never admitted it to Lance, but he knows it makes Keith’s protective side come out when he talks about his abuser. He knows that even just hearing the name or any slight mention of his abuser taps into Keith’s anger, his utter hatred for the man who’d dared to hurt Lance. They’ve talked about it before, on a night much like this one, and it had comforted Lance to know that Keith was protective of him and empathized with his pain, and didn’t want Lance to experience any such pain ever again. It was, and is, nice to feel loved.

Lance gives a small shrug, trying to downplay the words echoing in his head. “Oh, you know,” he says offhandedly. “Stuff about you guys hating me, or thinking I’m useless or unlovable. Stupid stuff like that. Stuff that I know isn’t true.”

 Keith’s grip—which tightened at the first sentence—loosens a bit, and becomes much more tender. Lance can feel the waves of love and adoration in his lover’s touches, welcomes them after the sting the words had created. He knows the words mean nothing; they couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth. He knows his space family loves him, and that they want nothing but the best for him. But Dream Lance doesn’t always take that into account, and on nights that the nightmares are particularly bad, Keith is there to ease him back into reality and remind him that he is loved, he is safe, he is strong, and that bastard can’t hurt him anymore.

A small blip of frustration enters his mind, a thought that is gone as quickly as it comes. _Even when he’s dead and in the grave, he still has an effect on me._ The thought and accompanying frustration is washed away by the kiss on his forehead, the kisses trailing down the length of his scar. His lips curl into a smile as Keith’s lips meet his, love blooming in his chest.

“You’re right,” Keith says as he presses more kisses into Lance’s temple. “That stuff is stupid, and absolutely untrue. Everyone on the team loves you so much—but I love you the most, just so you know.” Lance can feel the smile curving on his forehead, can hear it in Keith’s voice.

“Hunk or Coran might fight you on that,” Lance teases, feeling his whole body relax and fill with warmth.

Keith’s laugh melts his heart. “I don’t care, I will absolutely fight them on that. You are the love of my life, and I would fight the whole universe for you.”

In a way, they both have.

They spent seven years in space fighting the war for each other, amassing body-counts and blood on their hands to save the universe, emerging with scars on their skin and scars on their minds. The things they’ve seen, the things they’ve done, forever burned into their minds to be replayed in flashbacks and nightmares most likely for the rest of their lives. Seven years of fear and desperation, of promises to fight with everything they had so long as they _came back to each other_.

_Promise me you won’t be a hero out there. Promise me you’ll come back to me._

_I promise. As long as you do the same. You can’t leave me now, or I’ll be really mad._

_Can’t have that. I’d miss your smile too much._

_Then there you go. Come back to me and I’ll smile all you want._

_Deal._

Lance smiles at Keith, body warm, hands holding his and tracing the raised ridges of scars on his skin, Keith doing the same to his. Those scars—terrible as the memories behind them might be, they make his lover no less beautiful to him now than before their appearances on those pale fingers and knuckles. All of Team Voltron have those scars; they were soldiers in a war, inevitably scathed on the battlefield time and time again. But the scar on Hunk’s cheek doesn’t take away from the brightness of his smile, nor does the scarring across Pidge’s shoulders and throat from burns cause her to shy away from the world, and the scars littering Shiro’s body don’t take away from the man’s empathetic nature, untouched from the flames of war and battle. Keith’s dizzying array of lines crisscrossing across the expanse of light skin, telling tales of violence and pain, don’t take away from his gentleness. And Lance knows that the scars on his own body—the burns and gashes from the war, and the others from before—don’t make him any less lovable or beautiful to Keith. It is a fact he knows in his heart, a fact he has been reminded of time and time again with every feather-light kiss, every flutter of gentle fingers tracing small patterns over each one.

“I love you,” Lance murmurs, eyes and voice soft. Keith’s answering smile melts Lance’s heart, and he can’t stop himself from kissing those smiling lips.

“I love you too,” Keith whispers against Lance’s lips.

Keith turns out the lights and cradles Lance in his arms, Lance’s head resting on his chest, ear over Keith’s heart. The night is silent, nothing but the sound of the ocean waves and Keith’s heartbeat drifting into Lance’s ears. There is stillness and peace, blissful and long-overdue. Lance sighs, melting into his lover’s embrace.

They have their demons, all of them, haunting them, remnants from the war that leave them all gasping in the middle of the night unable to distinguish reality from memory. They didn’t emerge from the war unscathed, but that’s okay. They may not be alright right now, but if there’s one thing they know—it’s that now they have time. It won’t happen overnight, it won’t happen in a day, a week, maybe not even in _ten_ years, but they’ll get there. They’ll sleep through the nights peacefully, learn to stand with their scars visible and proud. And as Lance feels himself drifting off to sleep, he decides he can’t wait for that day to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy oh boy am I feeling things. This has been a wild ride for me from beginning to end, full of emotion and fear and excitement and a whole bunch of other things. I want to say thank you to all of you who left kudos and who bothered to come here in the first place and read, and especially to those of you who left such wonderful comments. I am so grateful for your words of encouragement and support, and for those of you who shared your experiences with me as well. You're all strong and beautiful people, and I have so much love and respect for you. Thank you for embarking on this journey with me. It's been a really amazing experience. 
> 
> That being said, this isn't the last you'll see of me! I've got plenty of ideas for fics that I'm going to start writing soon! I'mma take a small break first to write and work on them, and also to pack up cuz ya girl is moving for university in two weeks Y I K E S. Big things are happening. I'm ready and not ready. AHH. But yeah, stick around if you're interested in seeing more from me! 
> 
> Other news, I made a playlist for this fic! It's a WIP, and I'm gonna be adding to it probably all the time cuz there's tons of good music out there that I haven't heard that relate well to me and this fic and its themes. The order is all wonky, but there's not much I can do about that lol. Anyway, here's the link: [X](https://open.spotify.com/user/superreaderalex11/playlist/2bCTeAkhd9YycVD91ehXiZ)
> 
> You can also follow me on tumblr: [@fringeiplier](https://fringeiplier.tumblr.com/) or [@bi-ladin](https://bi-ladin.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Like always, for the last time on this fic, from the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. This first chapter is just to see how it'll be received before I continue. For every chapter, I'll make sure to put a warning if there's especially triggering material.


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